Careers will be made and broken in international competition.(The Dallas Morning News)

NEW YORK _ There's a 1960s space-age look to Rockefeller University's Caspary Auditorium, its white plaster walls and ceiling a network of big discs. The audience is casually dressed on a chilly February afternoon, freely coming and going and socializing between performances.

But onstage, and in the ears and minds of five jurors, this is serious business, lives and dreams hanging in the balance. One after another, four pianists 30 and younger dazzle and seduce the ears, hoping to be picked for the 11th quadrennial Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

From these New York auditions, and others conducted in Utrecht, the Netherlands; Budapest, Hungary; Moscow; Lugano, Italy; Chicago; and Fort Worth, 30 hopefuls will be chosen to participate in the mother of all piano competitions. It will be held May 25 through June 10 at Fort Worth's Bass Performance Hall.

This is the music world's version of "Survivor": Out of 210 applicants from around the world, only 137 were deemed worthy of live auditions. During the actual competition, the 30 survivors to be named this week will be cut down to a mere five finalists, three of whom will be ranked. A career or two may be sparked in the progress, others deferred or snuffed out.

Once again, competitors and judges, amateur enthusiasts and music professionals will debate the whole competition phenomenon. Plenty of people bristle at the very idea of ranking musicians like baseball pitchers or sides of beef. And competitions have at best a mixed record at identifying musicians of depth and sustaining power.

As the most exhaustively publicized of the world's thousands of music competitions, the Cliburn has become a lightning rod for the criticism. But its organizers argue that the fault is with observers who misunderstand the function of competitions.

They're not about rankings from best to worst, we're told, but about showcasing a variety of outstanding talents. Still, some musicians take home big checks and concert engagements and lots of publicity, and others don't. And some of the winners flame out in a season or two.