Japanese Pianist Mari Kodama
To Perform in San Jose

SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA -- Steinway Society The Bay Area announces the booking engagement of Japanese Pianist Mari Kodama for a performance on Sunday, November 17, 2002 at 7:00pm at Le Petit Trianon Theatre in downtown San Jose, California. Tickets are priced at $25.00 and $15.00 for Students and Seniors 65 and over.

The Steinway Society is a non-profit volunteer based organization whose mission is “To promote excellence in piano performance and music education in the Bay Area”. Entering its ninth season, the Mari Kodama performance is the second concert of the Steinway Society’s six concert 2002-2003 Season.

Japanese pianist Mari Kodama was born in 1967 in Osaka. In 1981 she entered the Conservatoire National Superieur de la Musique in Paris, where she studied the piano under Germaine Mounier and chamber music under Genevieve Joy-Dutilleux. She went on to win prizes in four international competitions: Jeunesse Musicale de Suisse, Viotti-Valsesia, Citta di Senigallia, F. Busoni in Bolzano.

When Mari Kodama was 17 she made her highly successful debut in Japan, and in 1987 her London debut with the London Philharmonic, playing Prokofiev's Third Concerto, was similarly well-received. Since then she has appeared throughout Europe, the USA and Japan with major orchestras and conductors such as Frans Bruggen, Bernhard Klee and her husband, Kent Nagano.

Recent engagements include her debut at the Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, and a solo recital at London's Wigmore Hall. She has also performed in Ludwigshafen, the Aspen Festival, San Francisco and Singapore, in addition to appearing with orchestras in RAI Torino, Switzerland, The Netherlands and England.

The LA Times quotes “If one had to choose highlights from a recital where unity and cumulative effect were the ruling orders, they would have to be the adagios from the Opus2 (Beethoven) sonatas. Kodama built each with intelligently measured power and passionate conviction” and “ Pianist Mari Kodam has an elegant touch, an admirable sense of clarity and a rhythmic scrupulousness. Whe think in keyboard colors and has a rainbow of tints at her disposal. There is a feline grace to her phrasing.”

Mari Kodama will perform the following works:

Le Petit Trianon Theatre, www.trianontheatre.com, is located in downtown San Jose at 72 North 5th Street. Tickets are priced at $25.00 and $15.00 for students and seniors 65 and over, and will include complimentary refreshements at a post concert “meet the artist reception” and intermission. For tickets and information please call 408-246-4200 or contact the Steinway Society website at www.steinwaythebayarea.com.