Mari Kodama
Mari Kodama
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| Occupation | concert pianist |
| Website | marikodama |
Mari Kodama is an international pianist who has performed at festivals and other venues in Europe, North American and Japan.
Background
She was born in Osaka, Japan and raised in Germany and Paris, France[1] due to her father's postings in these countries as well as Switzerland and England.[2] She and sister Momo, are daughters of a pianist mother and banker father. Their mother gave up performances for teaching and Mari assuming everyone played piano. She wanted to begin play at age 2, but her parents thought she was too young. She was able to read notes by age three. By the age of 10, she had already decided to be a concert pianist deciding not to return to Japan to prepare for university.[2] She studied piano at the Conservatoire National in Paris starting at age 14, under Germaine Mounier, and chamber music under Geneviève Joy-Dutilleux and while still a teenager, was performing in various European competitions. She made her Japanese debut in 1984 at age 17 and was immediately a success.[2]
Performances
Her first major debut was in 1987 playing Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 with the London Philharmonic.[2] Kodama made her debut at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall in 1995.[3]
She has collaborated with Tatiana Nikolaeva and Alfred Brendel,[3] as well as her sister Momo Kodama at a various venues including the 2014 Festival Internacional Cervantino.[4]
Kodama has performed throughout Europe, the United States, and Japan, and has appeared at venues such as Mostly Mozart, Bard Music Festival, the Hollywood Bowl, California’s Midsummer Mozart Festival, and European festivals such as those in Lockenhaus, Lyon, Montpelier, Salzburg, Aix-en-Provence, Aldeburgh, Verbier, La Roque D’Antheron and Évian.[3]
In 2002, she gave her final performance of the complete Beethoven piano sonata cycle, which she presented over three consecutive seasons in Los Angeles and Pasadena, California.
Kodama is a founding member of chamber music festivals in San Francisco, Sapporo, and Gmunden. She and her husband, conductor Kent Nagano, present Musical Days at Forest Hill, an unusual festival that among all her initiatives has most caught her interest.
Recordings
Kodama has recorded with the Naxos label, playing Beethoven Sonatas Nos. 21 (Waldstein), 23 (Appassionata) and 26 (Les Adieux). She has recorded Beethoven's complete piano sonatas for PENTATONE.[5] With her husband leading the Russian National Orchestra, she has recorded piano concerti by Frédéric Chopin and Carl Loewe, also on PENTATONE.[6]
References
- ^ "Mari Kodama, painist". Colbert Artists Management. March 2012.
- ^ a b c d Henken, John (November 21, 1999). "A Magnum of Opuses". Retrieved May 19, 2015.
- ^ a b c "Biography". Mari Kodama. Retrieved May 19, 2015.
- ^ 42 Festival Internacional Cervantino. Mexcio: CONACULTA. 2014. p. 45.
- ^ "Mari Kodama: BEETHOVEN Piano Sonatas on PENTATONE". FanFare. November 2012.
- ^ "Frédéric Chopin, Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21; Carl Loewe, Piano Concerto No. 2 in A". PentaTone Classics. 2003.