Chopin Salon @ Home: Rachel Kudo
Until we can see you again at our live events, we are pleased to present the Chopin Salons @ Home. We sincerely hope that all of our members and subscribers are keeping safe and healthy, and we invite you to enjoy these specially curated programs online, at home, and at your convenience.
During the course of the 10-day 2020 National Chopin Piano Competition, we had the privilege of meeting, hosting, and working with an extraordinary array of talented, unique and wonderful people. Executive Director, Barbara Muze says she enjoyed everyone who participated. “Being able to connect with so many amazing people who came to Miami for this event from around the U.S. and across the globe was absolutely the greatest reward for me this year. I’m truly grateful for all their help and support,” she said. “It was great fun having Rachel Kudo backstage with us as the Competition’s live stream host. I’m so happy we could feature her in this week’s online episode and share with our audience these brand new performances that Rachel just recorded last month.”
From Scholarship Recipient to Live Stream Host
Rachel Kudo is the personification of the Chopin Foundation’s mission. She recently described her journey with the Foundation: ”Since being a first-year scholarship recipient in 2001, I have been involved with the Chopin Foundation for almost 20 years! This amounts to nearly two-thirds of my life, and it is wonderful to reflect on how the Chopin Foundation played a significant role in my development and growth as a young pianist. The scholarship program nurtured my natural love for Chopin's music from a young age, and the competitions were a fantastic platform to gain visibility and experience, not to mention the invaluable opportunity to compete in Warsaw in addition to receiving prizes and engagements. I am grateful for the relationships and people I have met through all of my interactions through the Chopin Foundation.
The 2020 Competition was also very memorable, as I played a new role as the live stream host. It was fascinating to meet and speak with so many different people, and I enjoyed every moment. It is much easier than competing! Being backstage, meeting the jurors, volunteers, competitors, host families, stagehand, and camera crews, was a reminder of the great effort and planning it takes to make these events happen and for everything to run smoothly and successfully.”
Artistic Development
Rachel Kudo was only 14 years old when she entered the Foundation’s Scholarship Program. Even then, it was clear she was a gifted artist. The Scholarship committee commented on her “good technique . . . phrasing and nice warm sound.” She went on to complete the 4-year program and immediately entered the 2005 Competition at 17, taking home the Silver Medal, and then became the only American to reach the finals in Warsaw that same year. Her career continued to flourish and in addition to her success with the National Chopin Competition, in 2018 Rachel won the first prize at the International Bach Competition in Leipzig, Germany.
“As I've matured and entered my thirties, I have a greater appreciation and understanding of the privilege it is to be a musician. As my family made great sacrifices and endured many hardships, I am especially grateful for this gift to live a life in music. Music has been especially meaningful and irreplaceable during these past six months, with all of the suffering and the entire world visibly in crisis. Sitting down at the piano and having the ability to read through the works of Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Mozart, Schubert... What a blessing! How therapeutic it feels to have these tones emanate from under my fingertips, through the keys which hammers strike the strings, and having the sounds and sonic vibrations reach the innermost depths and corners of my soul. I feel certain that music is essential to life. It keeps one in contact with the totality of the universe, as part of the vibrating cosmos. It checks and balances the inner equilibrium. It is the sound of the human heart, shaped and guided by the mind. Music keeps me humble, in awe, wondrous, and thankful. I look forward to the days when we can celebrate the joys of live performances again, and experience the beauty of it together in one another’s company.”
A Musical Discovery
According to several of Chopin’s contemporaries, he was quite attached to the music of Bach, saying: “Bach is like an astronomer who, with the help of ciphers, finds the most wonderful stars.” Ms. Kudo told us that, “One of the compositions I’ve been studying is Bach’s Goldberg Variations, and it is still very much a work in progress. But one can see how Bach’s deeply spiritual and eternal music is providing sustenance, strength, and solace to so many people around the world right now. I was especially touched to read an article depicting how an unlikely friendship with the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born, ‘A common love for ideas, for music. It was really the Goldberg Variations that brought us together,’ said RBG.” You can read the article that Rachel is referencing HERE.
Let’s take a listen to Rachel’s recent recording of Bach:
Lessons from Maestro Leon Fleisher
“As a young pianist, I was captivated by Chopin's innate lyricism and exceptional genius in writing for the piano,” said Ms. Kudo. “Even his chamber music and concerti are a showcase for the (solo) pianist. However, over the past four years, I had the greatest fortune and privilege to study with Leon Fleisher at Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University. Although we worked on Chopin, Mr. Fleisher turned my focus to the Germanic repertoire. I marveled and struggled in an entirely new dimension of thought in interpreting composers like Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Schubert, and Schumann. At times, my mind would be overwhelmed and exhausted by Mr. Fleisher’s ideas and concepts, but I was deeply inspired, eager, and keen to learn. I knew what I was trying to absorb was something indescribable in words. Yet Mr. Fleisher taught music his entire life through words and silences, an incredible gift that transpired from his great tragedy.
Mr. Fleisher's recordings of the Brahms and Beethoven Concerti with the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell are a complete synthesis of composition and performers at its highest level. In solo recordings, his Brahms Waltzes and Handel Variations have no parallel. His Schubert, including two recordings of the posthumous B-flat Sonatas, is immeasurable. I haven’t heard a more meaningful Chopin Nocturne Op.27, No.2 than from his CD, ‘Two Hands.’
If I had to choose a single track, it would be his second movement of Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto. You can sense the magic in the airwaves in this recording. The beauty, grace, and elegance that shimmer through his tones are captivating; the series of searching, ascending trills in the right hand while the left-hand chords alternate in exchange with the orchestra is like a fluttering soul trying to soar and spread wings to take flight. When arriving finally at the end of the trills, it reaches the most cathartic and profound moment in the entire concerto. Mr. Fleisher’s playing of the melody in B major with the pizzicato of the orchestral accompaniment sounds to me, somehow, all-knowing, comforting, soothing, forgiving, and loving all at the same time.”
Patron of the Arts and a Student of History
We conclude this week’s episode with a fun personal anecdote that Rachel was kind to share:
“In honor of RBG and her legacy, I commissioned this artwork from a 17-year-old Romanian artist named Elena Binica [instagram@elenabinica]. Elena almost lost her life in a terrible accident one month ago. Her arm was completely torn apart but her life was spared, as doctors said it was only millimetres away from the main artery. Elena aspires to study animation for her bachelor’s degree in Switzerland. As for RBG, [I will] never forget all that this incredibly tough, thoughtful, compassionate, and resilient human being did to advance justice and equality for all Americans, despite the ‘three strikes’ against her: she was a woman, she was Jewish, and she was a mother.”
Artwork by Elena Binica commissioned by Rachel Kudo.
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Chopin Foundation programs are made possible with the support of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners; and the City of Coral Gables. Sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture; Funding Arts Broward; the Miami Salon Group; and scores of generous donors.