Eve Kodiak considers herself an improviser first, classical musician second. “The more I improvised, the more it changed the way I felt about the classical repertoire,” she explains. “I found myself taking much greater liberties with tone and rubato and dynamics. But when I listen to the oldest recordings we have, of pianists like Paderewski who had actually heard the playing of Chopin, I hear this exciting conundrum – an infallible sense of where the beat is, coupled with an incredible freedom around the beat. My goal is to play a suite like “Scenes From Childhood” with the inspiration Schumann must have felt, sitting down at the piano with a newly-arrived love letter in his hand.”
Kodiak graduated from Harvard University, where she both studied and taught under the late Professor Luise Vosgerchian. “She taught me that the most challenging intellectual exercise is to take a complicated musical concept, find its core, and teach it to a complete beginner.” Once of Kodiak’s Monadnock Music programs, “Dona Nobis Pacem In Eight Flavors” is a direct offshoot of Vosgerchian’s training, in which Eve will explore eight different musical styles through a familiar tune. In January of this year, this original set of variations won an honorable mention from Yo Yo Ma.
In this summer’s “Kitchen Sink” program, Kodiak also pays homage to another teacher, Professor John Heiss from The New England Conservatory of Music, where she received her M.M.. “John Heiss introduced me to Ives, and it changed my life, “she remembers. “I had no idea that music could be composed in the form of rivers and fireworks! When I played him the Alcotts, he gave me this beautiful smile and said ‘There’s a lot of gist in there.’ It’s almost thirty years later, and I’m still working on it!” As pianist, she considers her greatest influence to be Mary Sauer, whom she met backstage when she won first place in the Chicago Symphony Youth Auditions in 1971. Mary Sauer is just completing her 50th season with the CSO.
Eve Kodiak’s CD’s are The Return of Desire: Improvisations with cellist David Darling, and her composition for piano solo, Meditations for a New Year’s Day, inspired by a labyrinth walk in the Peterborough Town House. An educator and kinesiologist, she has published books and CD’s on music and developmental movement for children. She practices at The Lydian Center for Innovative Medicine in Cambridge, MA, where she works with performers, children, and people of all ages.