Mari Kodama, Momo Kodama, Karin Kei Nagano, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande & Kent Nagano
Biographie Mari Kodama, Momo Kodama, Karin Kei Nagano, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande & Kent Nagano
Mari Kodama
Born in Osaka, Mari Kodama was raised in Germany, Switzerland, France, and England. She studied piano with Germaine Mounier and chamber music with Geneviève Joy-Dutilleux at the Conservatoire National de Paris, later studying with Tatiana Nikolaeva at the Salzburg Mozarteum and with Alfred Brendel as a private pupil.
She has established an international reputation for her musical sensitivity and outstanding virtuosity. In performances throughout Europe, USA and Japan she has consistently demonstrated the profound aesthetics of her very personal and unique style.
In Japan, Kodama is a regular guest of major Japanese orchestras, most recently the Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra and the Yomiuri Nippon Orchestra in Tokyo. A brilliantly well- received performance of the complete Beethoven Sonata cycle in Los Angeles launched Kodama’s United States of America reputation, and was followed by acclaimed recital appearances in New York, Paris, London, as well as throughout Japan, Spain and Germany, and much of the rest of the U.S.A.
The Los Angeles Times pronounced her performances of the Prokofiev Third Piano Concerto “commanding and electrifying.”
Mari is also a founding artistic director of the Musical Days at Forest Hill, a festival of chamber music presented together with her husband Kent Nagano near their home in San Francisco. The pianist has played with such orchestras as the Berlin Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony, the NDR Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Berkeley Symphony, among others.
Momo Kodama
Praised for her “impeccable technique and facility for crystalline sounds” (American Record Guide), “her natural ease and keen sense for drama” (BBC Music Magazine), “deliciously pearly touch” (Classical-Music) and “crisp, pointed and sensuous playing” (San Francisco Chronicle) Momo Kodama has built up an impressive career with performances with world-renowned orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Bayerisches Staatsorchester, NHK Symphony Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, Orchestre de Chambre de Paris and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of Seiji Ozawa, Eliahu Inbal, Charles Dutoit, Kent Nagano, Roger Norrington, Lawrence Foster and André Previn. She has appeared at the Vienna Musikverein, Berlin Philharmonie, Berlin Konzerthaus, Suntory Hall Tokyo, Philharmonie de Paris, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ in Amsterdam and the Wigmore Hall in London.
She is a regular guests at festivals including Marlboro, Verbier, La Roque d’Anthéron, Festival Chopin, Festival d’Automne, Festival Saint-Denis, Enesco Festival, Tivoli Festival, Settembre Musica, Schleswig-Holstein, Miyazaki and Matsumoto (Seiji Ozawa).
Momo Kodama enjoys making chamber music with partners including Christian Tetzlaff, Renaud Capuçon, Augustin Dumay, Gautier Capuçon, Steven Isserlis and Jörg Widmann. She also devised and performed a programme for the 100th anniversary of Debussy’s death, with actor Pascal Rénéric and bariton Josep-Ramon Olivé at La Bellevilloise in Paris with further repeats in France and China.
Her repertoire ranges from the classical and romantic periods to contemporary works. Composers such as Toshio Hosokawa, Jörg Widmann and Christian Mason have written especially for her. Momo Kodama is regarded as a highly distinguished interpreter of Olivier Messiaen’s oeuvre (among which the Turangalîla-Symphonie, the Vingt Regards sur l’enfant-Jésus, the Catalogue d’Oiseaux), and premiered his Fantaisie for Violin and Piano with Isabelle Faust in 2006.
Her latest recording for ECM, released in spring 2021, features concertos by Mozart and Toshio Hosokawa, with the Mito Chamber Orchestra conducted by Seiji Ozawa. Prior to this, her CD “La vallée des cloches” and “Point and Line – Hosokawa/Debussy Etudes” also released by ECM, received outstanding reviews from the New York Times, BBC Music Magazine (recording of the month), Classica (“Choc”), Neue Zürcher Zeitung, In addition, Momo Kodama has recorded two CD’s for Pentatone together with her pianist sister Mari with works by Tchaikovsky and Martinů, as well as four CD’s for Triton with works by Chopin, Debussy and Messiaen. On october 1st, Momo Kodama was appointed Professor at the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe.
Born in Osaka in Japan, Momo Kodama spent her early years in Europe: educated at a German school, she attended the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Paris. She continued her studies under Murray Perahia, András Schiff, Vera Gornostaeva and Tatiana Nikolayeva. In 1991, she became the youngest laureate of the ARD International Music Competition in Munich.
Momo Kodama is based in Paris and Karlsruhe. In her spare time she enjoys cooking, especially for and with friends and family.
Karin Kei Nagano
Born in Berkeley in 1998 into a highly musical family, Karin Kei Nagano began playing the piano at three. At the age of nine, she won first prize in the International Scriabin Competition, made her stage debut with Mozart's Piano Concerto K246 and gave recitals. She went on to win the Best Interpretation Prize at the Berlin International Piano Competition and the 1st prize at the Anton Rubinstein International Piano Competition.
Since then, she has performed in Europe, Asia and the United States with the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (The Montreal Symphony Orchestra), the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, the Moscow Virtuosi Ensemble, the Tokyo City Philharmonic, the Yomiuri Nippon Orchestra and the Japan Philharmonic in a wide range of repertoire from the Baroque to the late Romantic period under the baton of Bashmet, Otaka, Bergius, and Nagano and Kobayashi, among others.
A stunning, multi-talented artist, Karin Kei Nagano graduated Cum Laude from Yale with a degree in architecture and works for several firms, including LemayMichaud in Montreal. She speaks fluent French, English, German and Japanese, acts in theatre, writes plays, directs films - and loves to surf!
She signed with the Analekta label for whom she recorded works by Mozart, Bach, Schubert and Messiaen.
