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photography by giuseppe cardullo
Rachel hosts Chopin Talk at the 18th International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw
WORLD PREMIERE
Rachel performs her commission of a new work composed by Marc-André Hamelin
MUSIC VIDEOS
ABOUT
Rachel Naomi Kudo, first prize winner of the prestigious International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig, captivates audiences worldwide with her “heartfelt, courageous, and flawless playing” (Lübecker Nachrichten). Hailed as a “thrilling” artist of “exceptional artistic merit and meticulous precision,” Rachel’s performances are a powerful testament to her profound artistry and deep musical insight.
Since her debut with the Chicago and Fort Worth Symphony Orchestras, Rachel has graced stages across the globe. Highlights of her distinguished career include solo and chamber performances at iconic venues such as Bachfest Leipzig, the Royal Castle in Warsaw, Salle Cortot in Paris, the Musikverein in Vienna, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the International Chopin Festival in Duszniki-Zdrój, the Tivoli International Festival in Denmark, the Bergen International Festival in Norway, as well as Washington, D.C.'s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and New York's Alice Tully Hall, David Geffen Hall, and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall.
Rachel’s accolades reflect her dedication and excellence in the field. She is the recipient of the Gilmore Young Artist Award, a Davidson Fellow Laureate, and a Salon de Virtuosi Grant winner. Her talents have been recognized through the National YoungArts Foundation and Rohm Music Foundation scholarships. She has also garnered top prizes at the U.S. National Chopin Competition in Miami and was a finalist at the 15th International Chopin Competition in Warsaw.
Born in Washington, D.C., to Japanese-Korean parents, Rachel began her musical studies at age four with Emilio del Rosario at the Music Institute of Chicago. After spending her early years in Japan, she returned to the U.S., where she pursued her passion for chamber music and played violin in her high school orchestra. She was a featured performer on NPR’s From the Top and later studied with Kum-Sing Lee in Vancouver, Canada.
Rachel earned her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School under the tutelage of Yoheved Kaplinsky and Joseph Kalichstein. Her many honors include the Arthur Rubinstein Prize, the Chopin Prize, the Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship, and the Sanders/Tel Aviv Art Museum Prize. A two-time first-prize winner of the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition at Juilliard, she furthered her education with a Professional Studies Diploma under Richard Goode at Mannes College of Music. She completed a Doctor of Musical Arts degree with Gilbert Kalish at Stony Brook University, and her studies were further enriched by mentorship with Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University.
Rachel has benefited from invaluable guidance in master classes led by luminaries such as Robert Levin, Emanuel Ax, and Sir András Schiff at Carnegie Hall’s Professional Training Workshops. She has expanded her artistic reach through programs including the Aspen Music Festival and School, Juilliard ChamberFest, the International Musicians Seminar Prussia Cove, Music@Menlo, the Perlman Music Program’s Chamber Music Workshop, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s "Chamber Music Encounters."
A passionate advocate for the transformative power of music, Rachel is deeply committed to fostering cultural engagement and human connection through her performances and teaching. Dedicated to mentoring young musicians, she has led master classes worldwide and served as a live-stream host for the Eighteenth International Chopin Competition in Warsaw and the U.S. National Chopin and Cliburn Junior International Piano Competitions. In February 2021, she premiered Marc-André Hamelin’s Suite à l'ancienne, commissioned by the Gilmore Piano Festival, in a Virtual Special Event. In January 2025, she will serve as a jury member for the 11th National Chopin Piano Competition of the United States.
PRESS
“PROMISE OF A WORLD CAREER”
“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
”KUDO EARNS A STORM OF APPLAUSE”
“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
“Rachel Naomi Kudo from the USA played Bach with a pearly attack, brought Beethoven's Bagatelles Op.126 with great depth in the interpretation and took on the Sonata Op.111 with a long breath and great calm. A convincing performance.”
-bernhard hartmann & guido krawinkel, general-anzeiger bonn
“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
