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Biography
Mari Kodama has established an international reputation for profound musicality and articulate virtuosity at the keyboard. In performances throughout Europe, the United States and Japan, she plays a broad repertoire in a powerful yet elegant style.
Recent highlights include Prokofiev Piano Concerto No.3 with the Osnabrücker Symphonierorchester, Mozart concerti with the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Portugal, Beethoven Piano Concerto No.2 with the Philaharmonia Baroque in San Francisco, Beethoven 4 with David Stahl and the Charleston Symphony, Beethoven 5 with the Orchestre Symphonique de Sherbrooke, and Haydn Concerto in D Major in with Mark Wigglesworth and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. She performed the Schoenberg Concerto with Jonathan Nott and the Bamberg Symphony, a work she has also performed with the American Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony, and on tour in the Netherlands. Mari Kodama regularly appears with her sister, pianist Momo Kodama, performing Mozart Concerto for Two Pianos No.10, at the Festival International de Piano La Roque d'Anthéron, in Japan and throughout the world. Mari Kodama has played with such orchestras as the Berlin Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony, the North German Radio Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Berkeley Symphony, and with Tokyo's NHK Symphony. Mari Kodama played surpassingly well-received complete Beethoven sonata cycles in Los Angeles, Tokyo and Nagoya, and has appeared in recital in New York, Paris, in Spain and Germany, and much of the U.S. In February 2008 she performed a special program in Vienna with pianist Marino Formenti celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Schoenberg Center. An active chamber musician, Ms. Kodama founded Forest Hill MusicalDays, a remarkable cooperative chamber-music festival, with her husband, conductor Kent Nagano, for their San Francisco community. The festival brings together their friends and colleagues from the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, and prominent freelancers from France, Austria, Russia and the U.S in programs of chamber music ranging from Bach to Messiaen to Schoenberg to Schumann to Schubert, with newer music by such composers as Jacob Druckman and Kurt Rohde. Ms. Kodama also recently curated a chamber music series at the Bad Kissengen Festival. In Japan, Ms. Kodama is a regular guest with both the Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra and the Yomiuri Nippon Orchestra in Tokyo. The Los Angeles Times pronounced her performance of the Prokofiev Third Piano Concerto at the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival "commanding and electrifying." Ms. Kodama has recorded Prokofiev concerti Nos. 1 and 3 with the Philharmonia Orchestra on the ASV label, and Chopin No. 2 and Carl Loewe's 2nd piano concerto with the Russian National Orchestra on PentaTone Classics. She is also featured on a new recording of Beethoven piano sonatas [PTC 5186-023]. This release, the second installment in her traversal of the complete Beethoven sonatas for the Dutch label, features the "Moonlight" sonata, Sonata No.4, Op.7, and the "Pathétique" sonata. She recently recorded Beethoven Piano concerti Nos. 1-3 with Kent Nagano and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin; she is due to record Nos. 4 and 5 in the next few seasons. Ms. Kodama made her New York recital debut at Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall in 1995. Her U.S. festival appearances include Mostly Mozart, Bard Music Festival, the Hollywood Bowl, California's Midsummer Mozart Festival, Ravinia, and Aspen. In Europe she has appeared at festivals in Lockenhaus, Lyon, Montpelier, Salzburg, Aix-en-Provence, Aldeburgh, Verbier and Évian. Mari Kodama was born in Osaka and raised in Paris. At the Conservatoire National in Paris, she studied piano with Germaine Mounier and chamber music with Genevieve Joy-Dutilleux. She has also worked with Tatiana Nikolaeva and Alfred Brendel. Source: http://www.marikodama.com/biography.html |
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