Momo Kodama

The international upbringing of pianist Momo Kodama is reflected in her musical choices. She has performed new works by French, Japanese, and German composers. Kodama's pianistic career is international, extending as far afield as Israel and Brazil, but she has always maintained strong ties to Japan and frequently performs there. She has a substantial recording catalog that includes albums on the ECM New Series and PentaTone Classics labels, among others. In 2024, she was heard on the latter label on the album Mozart & Poulenc: Double & Triple Concertos. Kodama was born in Osaka in 1972. Pianist Mari Kodama is her sister, five years older, and the two have performed and recorded together. Their family moved to Europe in 1973, and Momo grew up mostly in Germany. She entered the Conservatoire de Paris at 13 and had top-flight teachers there, including Germaine Mounier, András Schiff, Murray Perahia, and Tatiana Nikolayeva. Kodama took first prize at the Concours International d'Épinal in 1987, and two years later, her career received a major boost when she became the youngest winner up to that time of the Munich International Piano Competition. She later won other major honors, including the Saji Keizo Prize from Japan's Suntory Foundation. Kodama recorded several albums for the Triton label early in her career, including one featuring Messiaen's Vingt regards sur l'enfant Jésus in 2006. Kodama has continued to specialize in Messiaen's music and was encouraged by the composer's widow, Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen, who arranged for Kodama and violinist Isabelle Faust to premiere Messiaen's Fantasie pour violon et piano (1933). Kodama made her debut as a solo player in Japan in 1984 and was already a veteran when she performed Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1995. She made her debut at New York's Carnegie Hall that same year. As a concerto soloist, Kodama has appeared widely in Japan, Europe, and beyond. Kodama is also an enthusiastic chamber music player, collaborating with the likes of violinists Christian Tetzlaff and Renaud Capuçon, cellist Steven Isserlis, and her sister Mari. She has a substantial repertory of contemporary French music and has commissioned new works from Toshio Hosokawa and Jörg Widmann. Kodama recorded the solo album La vallée des cloches for ECM in 2013, returning to that label several times, including for the album Hosokawa / Mozart in 2021. Her recordings for PentaTone Classics have been of more mainstream repertory; her 2024 album of double and triple concertos by Mozart and Poulenc on that label also featured Mari Kodama. ~ James Manheim, Rovi