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 Momo Kodama
Piano
Momo Kodama has already established an extraordinary career in Japan, performing regularly with such renowned orchestras and conductors as the NHK Symphony Orchestra/Dutoit, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra/Eliahu Inbal and the New Japan Philharmonic/Seiji Ozawa, who has confirmed her as a “remarkable talent.” Her international popularity is now rising with immense speed both in Europe and the United States.
She made her U.S. debut in 1991 with the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra/Kent Nagano and the following season was invited to perform with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. She has also made her debut at the Tonhalle in Zurich with a series of recitals, and with the Berlin Symphony, which led to subsequent invitations for a concert in Spain and the opening concert of their 2003-04 season. These debuts were quickly followed with tours throughout Europe and the United States, including concerts in Germany, Switzerland, Denmark and Italy, as well as a tour of Japan with the Paillard Chamber Orchestra.
Since then she has enjoyed invitations across Europe, the U.S. and Japan, including the Berlin Philharmonic/Nagano, the Boston Symphony Orchestra/Ozawa, Montreal Symphony/Macal, Orchestre de l’Opéra de Lyon/Nagano, NHK Symphony/Lawrence Foster, Gulbenkian/Foster, Mostly Mozart Festival/Gerard Schwarz, Strasbourg Philharmonic/Jan Latham-Koenig, as well as re-invitations from the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic/Ozawa, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony/Gary Bertini, and Tokyo Philharmonic/Rudolf Barshai. Last season she returned to the Berlin/Cristian Gansch and Berkley Symphony Orchestra/Nagano, and also made highly successful debuts with the Hallé Orchestra/Herbig, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic/Schwarz and the Barcelona Symphony/Gary Bertini.
As a recitalist, she is a regular guest at festivals across Europe and the U.S. including Verbier, Lucerne, Schleswig Holstein, La Roque d’Anthéron, Enescu Festival, Tivoli Festival-Copenhagen, and the Marlboro Festival. She made her Paris Châtelet debut at the age of 17 and had a very successful Wigmore Hall debut in London last season. Also highly regarded as a chamber musician, Momo Kodama regularly performs at festivals in Japan and also was invited for the second time to both the Davos and Berlin Festivals.
It is an extremely exciting time for Momo and this season she will be performing with Steven Isserlis in Asia following their success in France at the Ivry Gitlis Festival in Cassis in 2003. Also she will be performing with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony/Valery Gergiev this summer. Next season she will make her debut with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra/Sir Roger Norrington, and make return visits to the Gulbenkian Orchestra, the Nogoya Philharmonic for a European tour, and to the Schleswig Holstein Festival, as well as a special invitation to Arvo Pärt’s Festival in Torino – Settembre Musica. Momo will also tour the whole cycle of Mozart violin sonatas throughout Europe with her partner, Yukuzo Horigome.
Momo specializes in the works of Clementi, which has led to invitations to both La Roque d’Anthéron and Les Folles Journées de Nantes. In contrast, works such as Messiaen’s “Turangalilia Symphony” and “Oiseaux Exotiques” and the Poulenc Double Concerto are fast giving her an individual name on the world stage. Momo has given world premieres of works written for her by Ichiro Nodaira in Berkeley and Jorg Widmann at the Lucerne Festival. Other invitations have included “Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jésus” in Tokyo in 2002 (Messiaen’s year), a European tour with the Nagoya Symphony performing the “Turangalila Symphony”/Inbal, “Oiseaux exotiques” and also “Visions de l’Amen” with Mari Kodama.
Momo Kodama was born in Osaka, Japan. She moved to Europe during her very early childhood and began studying the piano with her mother at the age of three. She studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris with Germaine Mournier and continued her artistic development with Murray Perahia, András Schiff, Tatiana Nikolaeva and Vera Gornostaeva. Among many prizes, she has been awarded first prize at the Munich Competition Prize, the Idemitsu Award and the Terence Judd Award in 1999. She has also released two CDs titled “Chopin – Piano Works” and “Impressions – Debussy” on the Exton label.
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