Young Natacha
first stepped into the classical music world as a student of the Lysenko Music School in Kiev, where she completed her training at the age of seventeen. After these formative years, she was part of three tours across the USA between 1996 and 2002 with the Kiev Symphony Orchestra; her very first experience as a concert musician.

She soon after integrated the Tchaïkovski National Music Academy of Ukraine in Kiev where she followed the teachings of Irina Barinova and Igor Riabov and applied for the competitive CNSM in Paris at the age of nineteen. She studied simultaneously in both these brilliant institutions and graduated with the highest distinctions and honours of the jury.

Four personalities have left their imprint on Natacha’s pianistic technique. First, Alain Planès, “my first professor, simply the representation of elegance, possessed a sheer sophisticated style”. Then came Jacques Rouvier, “very attached to the text, a rigorous and meticulous personality”. Her encounter with Ferenc Rados in Budapest, later on, was crucial: “he taught me how to read in between the notes” and, finally, Henri Barda “felt like a hurricane on my whole work and training, for there to reign only the power of music”. Rameau’s work marked a turning point in her approach of pianistic technique and she dedicated two albums to this composer: rst in 2009, in association with Luciano Berio and then in 2012, with the label 1001 Notes.

2009 was marked by competitions, her first recitals and an encounter with chamber music she will then regularly turn herself to. It was also the year Natacha Kudritskaya was invited to perform in the most prominent festivals and concert halls across France and Europe, among which gured Opéra Comique and Cité de la musique in Paris, Wigmore Hall in London, Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre, Gstaad’s Festival, Davos festival, Concertgebouw in Bruges, Flagey in Bruxelles, la Grange de Meslay, Oxford Chamber Music Festival and Kuhmo’s Festival in Finland where she performed Abdel Decaux’s Clairs de Lune (which is featured on Nocturnes released by Deutsche Grammophon).

Natacha regularly goes back to Ukraine, but the events occurring in 2014 gave a particular meaning to her homecoming in February that year, sadly marked by death roaming in the streets of Kiev. A pacifist answer to military power was embodied by the piano which became a symbol of revolution. Natacha found herself playing in the streets of Maidan’s neighborhood, surrounded by a crowd marked with fear and tension. A sense of healing and mourning emerged from the music in the midst of such darks times, contributing to make this profoundly humane experience one of the most important moments of her life.

Soon thereafter, she began a tour across Ukraine, going through Lviv, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Severodonetsk, Lougansk and Kiev. Since November 2014, Natacha Kudritskaya has been part of Universal Music catalogue and her first album, Nocturnes, is released by Deutsche Grammophon. (Philippe Banel)