Inheritance

“To Kodama’s great credit, she seeks out the subtle beauties of this music, resorting neither to overstatement nor to an assumed naivety. Her clarity of touch and unfailing kinaesthetic sense are a pleasure to experience.” Gramophone, December 2024 Mari Kodama is consistently praised for her virtuosity in a wide range of repertoire, including orchestral, chamber and solo works by composers of all periods. She is also known for her natural musicality, tonal expressiveness with a clear form, and as a benchmark Beethoven interpreter. In the 2025/26 Season, Mari Kodama showcases her diverse talents with various international concert appearances, such as duo recital with Momo Kodama at Lucerne Festival, a return to Muse & Piano at Louvre Lens and Filarmonica de Stat Transilvania (Lawrence Foster). She also continues her series with all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas and new work written by Rodolphe Bruneau-Boulmier at Konzerthaus Blaibach. Other recent highlights include an opening concert with Le Cercle de l’Harmonie in Paris (Jérémie Rhorer) where she plays Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.1 on fortepiano, an open-air concert with Philharmonischen Staatsorchester Hamburg, debut concerts with National Symphony Orchestra, Taiwan (Lan Shui), Orchestra Haydn of Bolzano and Trento, and Orchester der KlangVerwaltungand at Herrenchiemsee Festival, and a return to Japan Philharmonic (Kahchung Wong). As a further demonstration of her versatility, Kodama played a central part in the hugely successful ballet production ‘Beethoven Projekt II’ (John Neumeier) which re-opened the Staatsoper Hamburg after months of COVID-19 closures and which was revived in 2022/23 with eight performances. In the 2025/26 season, she returns to the Staatsoper Hamburg for a new production of Death in Venice (Neumeier). In recital, she collaborated with Markus Hinterhäuser featuring Messiaen’s Visions de l’Amen and with Rebekka Hartmann featuring Beethoven violin sonatas along with Bruneau-Boulmier’s new works. She also organised the Beethoven Festival ‘A Life in a Day’ in San Francisco and presented all 32 of Beethoven’s piano sonatas over two days by 14 different soloists. Beethoven’s piano works form a focal point of Mari Kodama’s recording activities with Pentatone and Berlin Classics. She is one of few female pianists to record the composer’s complete sonatas, with her 2014 box set from Pentatone receiving critical acclaim. In fall 2019 she released Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.0-5, which together with his Rondo for Piano and Orchestra and his Eroica Variations for solo piano complement the Beethoven CD – Box with all of Beethoven’s piano concertos as well as the Triple Concerto together with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Kent Nagano (Berlin Classics). Kodama’s latest releases are Mozart’s Concertos for Three Pianos and Poulenc’s Concerto for Two Pianos with Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and a nuanced portrait of Bruckner’s piano works on Pentatone (October 2024) which received great reviews from various publications. Through her performing activities, Mari Kodama has brought infrequently heard gems of the piano repertoire to global audiences. She has performed Stenhammer’s Piano Concerto No.2 in Gothenburg and New York and has also collaborated with Viviane Hagner on Alban Berg’s Chamber Concerto for Piano and Violin, which they performed with both the Jyväskylä Sinfonia and the DSO Berlin. Additionally, in 2013 Mari Kodama premiered Jean-Pascal Beinthus’ Double Piano Concerto together with Momo Kodama and Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo. Mari Kodama also performed in the Canadian premieres of Jörg Widmann’s Valse Bavaroise and Humoresken, both at the Canadian Orford Festival in summer 2010. In addition to her performances, Mari Kodama also plays an active role as a music festival Artistic Director. She co-founded the Forest Hill Musical Days Festival, a chamber music festival in San Francisco, with her husband Kent Nagano, and she has also led the chamber music series at the Orford Music Festival. In 2018 she assumed artistic directorship at the Festival Tra Luce e Sogno in Postignano, Italy, for which she secured artists such as Christian Gerhaher, Matt Haimovitz and Gerold Huber, among others. Mari Kodama is a Steinway Artist.

Kent Nagano is renowned for interpretations of clarity, elegance, and intelligence. Equally at home in music of the classical, romantic, and contemporary eras, he has introduced concert and opera audiences around the world to new and rediscovered music while offering fresh insights into the established repertoire. From 1978 to 2009, Nagano served as Music Director of Berkeley Symphony, shaping the orchestra into an internationally recognized ensemble celebrated for its adventurous programming and bold artistic vision. Under his leadership, the Symphony became known for championing living composers, presenting numerous U.S. and world premieres, and forging a unique identity rooted in innovation and excellence. His impact on Berkeley Symphony remains foundational and enduring. Nagano will be the next Chief conductor and Artistic Director of the Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España (OCNE) in Madrid starting in September 2026 and is the newly appointed Principal Artistic Partner of Filarmonica Toscanini. In addition, he is committed together with Jan Vogler as Artistic Director of the Ring project “The Wagner Cycles” of Dresdner Musikfestspiele with Dresdner Festspielorchester and Concerto Köln alongside Jan Vogler. He has been Honorary Conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin since 2006, Concerto Köln since 2019, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal since 2021 and the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg since 2023 and is as patron of the Herrenchiemsee Festival.