“I think it is not meant in a bad way,” classical pianist Khatia Buniatishvili tells me earlier this week after arriving in Los Angeles from Paris. She’s talking about a French television program that dubbed her the “Beyoncé of classical music.”
“I think Beyoncé, the way they see her,” she says, “is as a new kind of feminism which means you can be strong and super professional and sexy and free and the way you want to be. Probably it was meant as a compliment.”
Buniatishvili is in town for a concert on Thursday night at the Hollywood Bowl. She will be performing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto #1 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. For the first time in her career she will be collaborating with Gustavo Dudamel. It’s a collaboration she’s keenly interested in starting.
“Meeting someone new is always exciting, especially someone who is beloved by lots of people. I can’t talk much about a conductor if I haven’t experienced him, or her, live. The first rendezvous you never know how it’s going to go, but it will be exciting. I only expect beautiful things to happen.”
Of course Tchaikovsky’s concerto is one of the most frequently performed of all concerti. It is also one of the most beloved. So when a work like that is devoured by fans, how does Buniatishvili make each performance fresh for herself?
“I think interpretation is about freshness and the original thesis. Your thoughts, your understanding of the music and the composer. You surprise yourself every time you play. I don’t have the reference of hearing other performances. I don’t listen to them. I read it as if it were a love letter written for me and no one else has ever read it. Every time I hear something completely new in the piece.”
She goes on to talk about how it isn’t just about what’s fresh but what’s familiar. “You don’t only want to discover something new, but you want to come back to your serenity through the music. Sometimes with this music you feel much more protected because you are emotionally free and you can express how you want to and you can stay with your inside world.”
Some artists might find the large size of the Hollywood Bowl intimidating. Not Buniatishvili who not only has played there before, but recently played a significantly larger event.
“Yesterday I performed in Paris for Bastille Day for 100,00 people on the streets,” she reveals. “This concert was in front of the Eiffel Tower. It was very exciting and unique. You don’t have many concerts like that. The Bowl is an amazing feeling. I like the freedom I feel when I’m playing and when it is open air and people are there to enjoy the music. This is something that makes sense to me. Concerts only make sense if we can unite, be silent when we want and be joyful when we want to be.”
One pianist who makes Buniatishvili joyful is the legendary Martha Argerich who not only serves as a role model as a pianist, but also as a woman.
“She is who she is and she doesn’t try to be who she isn’t,” she says of her idol. “She’s naturally gifted, she’s truthful and she’s a true artist. When I was a teenage girl I was really inspired by her as a woman in general because I felt there are, in some people’s thoughts, limits with girls. When I saw Martha she was mentally and artistically stronger than other artists who were not female. That inspired me.”
Born in Georgia (the country just to the south of Russia – not the US state), Buniatishvili gave her first performance when she was six years old. Growing up so close to Russia perhaps gives her a unique understanding of Tchaikovsky and his music.
I asked her about something the composer said. “Music possesses much richer means of expression and it is a more subtle medium for translating the 1000 shifting moments of the feelings of the soul.”
“Well, first of all I would easily agree with Tchaikovsky,” she says. “Music concentrates emotions and this is very important. Especially today when everything is very fast, everyone is very business-directed. People are mostly oriented on success and moving faster and forward. We don’t take time for important things. For knowing ourselves or the people that surround us.
“Music reminds us that human beings are not just people who do their every day things. We have a huge fantasy. A huge palette of emotionality. Music concentrates these emotions and it moves us and brings us to a source of what is most important in a human being. The most important thing is music is written by human beings. It doesn’t fall from the sky. It’s written for other human beings and it is concentrated on our own emotions and connecting with others. It’s like love. Love makes you share something with others and you connect with others. To me, that’s what it does.”
For tickets go here.
Photo by Julia Wesely. All photos courtesy of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association.