Jerry Kuderna

Jerry Kuderna is a pianist who gives lecture/recitals every Friday at the Berkeley Arts festival.

Articles By This Author

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Review

Mozart and a Master

Jerry Kuderna - July 27, 2009
It seemed fitting that the conclusion of the 35th season of the Berkeley-based Midsummer Mozart Festival, coinciding with the number of years of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s life, would include an early symphony from his youth in Salzburg and conclude with his last, the glorious, seemingly unsurpassable “Jupiter.”
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Review

On the Path to Perfection

Jerry Kuderna - June 1, 2009

It has become a cliche to refer to classical musicians as being “phenomenal” or even geniuses at their instruments. If a performer can get to the heart of the music, that’s enough for me. Still, in a profession in which it’s expected that as a teenager you have already learned and performed the summits of the keyboard, it has become increasingly difficult to grab the attention of the public as, say, Vladimir Horowitz did when he raced Sir Thomas to the finish line of the Tchaikovsky First.

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Review

Playing B's From the A-List

Jerry Kuderna - April 28, 2009

After two staggering performances of Bach and Beethoven at Krystian Zimerman’s recital Friday, sponsored by Cal Performances at Zellerbach Hall, the familiar thought came to mind: “How can you follow that?”

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Review

Sounds of Conviction

Jerry Kuderna - March 31, 2009
Formerly known as “A Bright New Trio,” pianist Joseph Kalichstein, violinist Jaime Laredo, and cellist Sharon Robinson have been together now for over three decades — and it shows, not only in their technical mastery as individual instrumentalists, but also in the subtle ways that great chamber ensembles mature.
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Preview

Schiff at the Summit

Jerry Kuderna - March 21, 2009
Hans von Bülow once described Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and Beethoven’s 32 Piano Sonatas as the Old and New Testaments of music.
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Review

Truths Out of Time

Jerry Kuderna - March 16, 2009

The pianist Rudolf Serkin took a year off from concertizing to study the Bach Cantatas because, as he said, “They are such beautiful music.” On hearing the American Bach Soloists perform four of them Saturday at the First Congregational Church in Berkeley, and after witnessing the vitality, spirit, and timeless human truths that they contain, I realized it would take a lifetime to fully get to know the wonders of this music.

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Review

Consolation and Joy

Jerry Kuderna - February 24, 2009

While speaking with one of the singers of the Pacific Collegium during the intermission of their Sunday concert giving the complete motets of Johann Sebastian Bach, I mentioned that I came to love these works only via recordings, while attending the Carter centenary at Tanglewood this past summer.

Feature

In the Sound Fields of Elliott Carter

Jerry Kuderna - December 2, 2008
Composer Elliott Carter has been around for 100 years, literally. For 60 of them he has been at the forefront of serious American composition. But, like so many 20th-century composers, his music has had more limited exposure to audiences than his genius warrants. But that may be changing now.
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Review

Triumph in Sonata Form

Jerry Kuderna - October 21, 2008

András Schiff continued his traversal of the 32 Beethoven sonatas Sunday with a program that included two of the high points of the composer's middle period. At one end was the Sonata Op. 57, the "Appassionata" (1805), the work that surely marks the peak of the "heroic" Beethoven's piano output. At the other end was the less heroic and more vulnerable work, Sonata Op. 81a ("Les Adieux"), dating from 1810.

Pianistic Revelations

Jerry Kuderna - October 7, 2008
Call it the Wall Street Willies or what you will, the audience attending Richard Goode's Cal Performances recital at Zellerbach Hall on Sunday afternoon was in need of a musical bailout. Despite the somber tone of Bach's G-minor prelude from Bk.