“At the piano evening on Sunday evening in the Lübeck MuK, the young pianist Rachel Naomi Kudo was seen. In 2018, the American was the winner of the 21st Johann Sebastian Bach Piano Competition in Leipzig and had made herself noticed with many other awards. Now she performed in MuK’s new concert series and quickly conquered the audience. 

Rachel Naomi Kudo was completely in her element in Beethoven's late six Bagatelles op.126 and the Diabelli Variations op.120, in which Beethoven finds his most personal voice and whose technical challenges fill many pianists with timidity. Heartfelt and with admirable elan, and the highest perfection in the playing, Rachel Naomi Kudo left behind a promise of a world career. Courageous and perfect playing.”

-dk, Lübecker Nachrichten

“The US-American Rachel Kudo, this year’s winner of the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig, caused a stir. She performed the Italian Concerto, which Bach originally wrote for harpsichord, brilliantly. Full of joy in playing and with the utmost precision, she created the baroque sound elements and artistic ornamental figurations, as well as the change between solo and orchestra in the instrumental concert, which was imitated in the composition. Kudo brought the majestic main theme and the lyrical secondary theme of the first movement in a lively way. Empathetically, she presented the second movement, in which the melody reminds us of an emotional, richly ornamented aria. The American pianist was completely in her element in the virtuoso third movement, full of lively, sparkling spontaneity. She received cheers and thunderous applause for her magnificent performance.”

-Elisabeth Klaper, Südwest Presse

“MUSICAL AND THRILLING”
"The immense wealth of famous quotations about Bach alone confirms his exceptional position in music history: "He should not be called Brook, but Sea" or "Bach, this ocean is infinite and inexhaustible in its richness of harmonies and ideas - he is the founding father of harmony": as was Beethoven's worship. From Bach’s collection of ‘Clavier-Übung,’ which is in no way to be understood as a teaching work, Rachel Naomi Kudo started with the French Overture with the highest artistic claim.

Precise Down to the Smallest Detail
A majestically striding Overture is followed by a collection of stylized courtly dances such as Courante, Gavotte or Sarabande. These dances with diverse tactical metrics, different accentuations, and shifting emphases require a high level of characterization, and finely sculpted ornamentation (of figurations and decorations). In doing so, Rachel Naomi Kudo not only demonstrates a perfection of technique and precision down to the smallest motivic detail, but she also shines with the distinction and clear execution of various ornaments and virtuoso renderings. Even then, the structure and melodic substance of the short movements always shimmered through. As if carved in stone and with sharp, clear contours, these melodic and rhythmic peculiarities in the suites stood out against each other, resulting in a clearly structured and organically flowing Bach picture, as if out of the textbook of historical performance practice.

Very musically and with rousing energy, she then went in to the "Italian Concerto" of the named collection. One can only succeed in this rapidity and brilliance, yet permeating clarity and transparency, when interpreters feature these articulate subtleties and enormous playing-technical skills. The quietly flowing Andante revealed the softest gradations of her ability to chisel and shade in the finest nuances.

The presentation of the piano cycle "Carnaval" by Robert Schumann, the cycle of more than 20 miniatures in the form of romantic character pieces, was also convincing in all interpretative matters, technically, sonically as well as dynamically and agogically fulfilling. Schumann came to the letters – that inspires the progression of the different keys and inspired the basic motive, through his adoration for Schubert’s waltzes and further homages. The difficulty lies - similar to the Bach Suite - in the art of respectively capturing and mediating the peculiarities: changes of measure and key, metric shifts and, in Schumann especially, a wealth of timbres through a highly differentiated attack. These were the strengths of the pianist who presented herself impressively here.”

-Reiner Henn, Die Rheinpfalz

No other composer expresses inner fragility, sensitivity and openness in the way that Chopin does – writes Rachel Naomi KUDO

Rachel joined Chopin Foundation Executive Director, Barbara Muze to introduce this week's episode of the Chopin Salons @ Home. She also presents her commission artwork in honor of the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Watch the World Premiere

KALAMAZOO -- Pianist Naomi Kudo, 2008 Gilmore Young Artist, opened the Fontana Chamber Arts 2009 Summer Music Festival Wednesday night with an astounding performance. Both as a soloist and chamber player, Kudo proved an extraordinary artist ready for a successful professional career. Playing at the First Baptist Church, on the splendid Fazioli grand piano, Kudo displayed stunning virtuosity with three demanding solo pieces to begin the concert.