Kristina Marinova

January 13, 2022
Kristina Marinova is an expressive, passionate, stunning classical pianist who devotes herself to finding the soul of the composer and the meaning of their music in every performance. She understands the power music has in it's emotion and expression. Kristina's efforts in researching the music and artist make her interpretation of the pieces that much more enjoyable.

Her three points of reference that play into her music are Purpose, Listening and Balance. Her latest album is a solo piano project called "4 Rhapsodies". A collection of music that is challenging for piano since they are usually performed by full orchestras. Kristina delivers strong performances throughout which were a catalyst for her emotional experiences at the start of the pandemic.

Kristina will be performing "4 Rhapsodies" live this month including a performance at Carnegie Hall on January 31st!

During this conversation you'll learn about Kristina's upbringing in her native Bulgaria, her passion for teaching gifted students which lead to her forming the Marinova Music Institute, why she chose performing over teaching as her calling, her future projects including showcasing women composers and more.

https://thestayamazingmovement.com/episode-64-kristina-marinova/

Learn more about Kristina and purchase her music on her website: https://www.kristinamarinova.com/

Purchase tickets to her Carnegie Hall performance here: https://bit.ly/3I5QUuT

4 RHAPSODIES from critically-acclaimed pianist Kristina Marinova and Navona Records is a collection of vibrant, dynamic, and technically demanding works for solo piano. The album’s titular piece, Four Rhapsodies op. 11 by early 20th-Century composer Ernst von Dohnányi is rarely performed in concert given the level of musicianship it requires of pianists. Now, its combination of stark drama and dazzling virtuosic passages may be enjoyed by listeners everywhere.

Today, Kristina is our featured artist in “The Inside Story,” a blog series exploring the inner workings and personalities of our composers and performers. Read on to learn why candle wax still covers her childhood piano, and why she believes silence is powerful…

When did you realize that you wanted to be an artist?
I have always known I wanted to play the piano, but it all started at the age of four when it became apparent that I was born with a gift. Honestly, it is embedded in my DNA. At age three, I watched professional pianists play concerts and realized how much I wanted to be right there where they were, on stage with the piano. I am truly grateful to my family for recognizing my dreams were real and for helping to foster that desire to be a performer one day. It has been my world ever since, and no matter where life has taken me, my music is my place of strength and repose.

What was your most unusual performance, or the most embarrassing thing that happened to you during a performance?
I grew up in Bulgaria under a communist regime. We were often without electricity for hours. Candle wax still covers my childhood piano in Plovdiv. I remember playing in a concert in a large hall. It was a cold winter evening and the recital hall went completely dark. I couldn’t even see the keys on the piano. Candles were lit to enable me to finish my performance, but being just a child it was a very scary experience, which I have never forgotten.

If you could make a living at any job in the world, what would that job be?
I would become a doctor, endeavoring to find the secret to longevity. There is so much I want to do and learn and I feel one lifetime is not enough. The mechanism of the human body and how it ages is also fascinating to me. When I am not practicing or doing musical research, I am consumed with reading about health, supplements, and new medical discoveries. Musicians are athletes. We need to be extremely fit and it’s critical to know one’s physicality in order to perform at world class level.

If you could spend creative time anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?
I would like to spend an hour on the top of Mount Everest on a clear and perfect day, where I can sit practicing silent observation. Both silence and observation are components of the creative process for artists. We exist in a busy modern world with sensory overload in terms of noise and information. Silence provides us with a sense of calm, which is crucial for success.The brain can get overwhelmed which causes us to rely too much on our physical abilities. Sleep can be in short supply, especially when tending to small children, yet we seek to achieve many of our goals in the shortest period of time. We forget how to listen, enjoy, and enhance our experiences on this earth. We constantly feel the need to fill the silence, but being quiet is powerful. It helps to discover and connect to one’s inner sanctuary.

What does this album mean to you personally?
It was recorded right at the beginning of the Pandemic during stressful, tragic, and unforeseen times. Playing the rhapsodies helped me to embrace, experience, and express the emotions I felt at the time. The rhapsodies became a catalyst for me to communicate my creative moods, feelings, and musical ideas. These works are highly emotional, unanticipated in their direction, and full of amplitudes of feelings. At the same time, they also reflect how I am as a person, how I feel and innately experience life: Very passionate, dynamic, extreme, sensitive, spontaneous, intense, introverted, and yet extroverted at the same time.

Is there a specific feeling that you would like communicated to audiences in this work?
I want to touch people’s hearts after a long day at the office; My desire is to evoke an emotional experience. These works represent a kaleidoscope of contrasting feelings. The themes of life, death, grief, joy, sadness, love, madness, and tranquility are present throughout the rhapsodies. They are bursts of emotional impulses, improvisations, and explosions. I want the listener to connect to the music and have a dynamic experience.

Who or what inspired you to pursue a career in music and who or what have been the most important influences on your musical life and career?

Honestly, the inspiration seemed to just be programmed into my DNA, and I was born with a
pre-destined path in life. I’ve always known that. Fortunately, my parents, both engineers,
recognised and helped foster that innate desire wherever and however they could. They took
me to concerts at a very early age, I remember watching Aida when I was only three years old.
My grandmother, also a non musician, adored the opera, knew the librettos by heart, and would
recite them to me. They became my bedtime stories. She used to call me “My little Clara Wieck”

I’ve looked on life with a great curiosity, and through the years, I’ve always found inspiration from all of my teachers. They have helped me in many different ways in my development as an artist.

What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?

Finding the perfect balance in life. I knew that one day, I wanted to have children, because I so love and admire them. I am now truly blessed with two of my own. Alone, being a performer, is
challenging enough in its own way, and it becomes even harder when one adds the demands of
motherhood. My time is no longer my own, requiring me to work off hours- late at night, or really
early in the morning when everybody is still sleeping. In addition,with kids one has to expect the
unexpected, which is a real challenge to control.

Which performances/recordings are you most proud of?

Frankly, I am my toughest critic, I always require a lot of myself and demand for more in performances.

Which particular works/composers do you think you perform best?

Obviously I love music and find all kinds of works, composers, styles and genres quite enjoyable. However, I believe that the Russian composers, particularly Scriabin and Rachmaninov come more organically to my artistic understanding and creative impulses. I also have been told that I interpret Scriabin well. It is easier for me to play Rachmaninov because of my large hands and really long fingers.

There is greatness in all composers and I truly love including different styles in my repertoire. Bach’s Goldberg Variations is my next big recording project.

What do you do off stage that provides inspiration on stage?

Interacting, playing with, and inspiring my children. We are constantly learning from each other. I love seeing the world through their curious eyes, they keep me youthful and full of energy, as well as constantly on my toes. I try to set an example for them. They also inspire me to do something great with my gift. In return,I try to inspire them to grow up to be good people and
give back to the world. They love music and singing, and I love accompanying them while they
perform.

How do you make your repertoire choices from season to season?

I meditate on the meaning of my performances and what message I want to leave with the world. My aim is to inspire new audiences, to be inclusive and open to the people who attend my concerts by mixing pieces for a variety of listeners, creating programs that are unique and
stylistically contrasting. Connecting to themes that are modern and relevant. As people have
different interests and likings, it is important to me to reach out to each and every one of them. My goal is to touch their hearts in a meaningful way.

Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in and why?

Of course Carnegie Hall, one of the most beautiful in the world. I will be performing there on
January 31.

What do you feel needs to be done to grow classical music’s audiences?

Audiences need to have a great emotional experience, they need to be moved. People want to
feel something after a long day at the office. Establishing a deep connection with my audience is
of utmost importance to me. Outreach and lecture presentations are also always helpful, especially for the younger people. Bringing understanding of the compositional ideas and
musical matter are critically important in order to connect the work to the listener.

What is your most memorable concert experience?

I remember every concert and how I felt, starting at the age of 6.

As a musician, what is your definition of success?

Being both authentic and versatile at the same time. Sustainable and flexible in time. Reaching
your audience on the deepest level and communicating the message that you carry within you.
Also being a good athlete, we are vessels and need a good machine to operate.

What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians?

Be patient and persistent. Keep walking the path that you envision for yourself. You are special,
magical in your own way. Build your strength while acknowledging your weaknesses, so long as
you are taking steps to improvement, you are going to be successful. Accept who you are and
be kind to yourself. Love and take care of yourself, don’t be harsh because self doubt is the worst it will only bring to your playing tension and stress, which you then carry to the stage.

Celebrate your successes with your friends and loved ones. Always listen to your heart and follow your dreams! Don’t let anybody define you!

What is your most treasured possession?

My Steinway.

What is your present state of mind?

Creating magic

Kristina Marinova’s 4 RHAPSODIES, a collection of vibrant, dynamic, and technically demanding works for solo piano by Ernst von Dohnányi, Astor Piazzolla, Franz Liszt, and George Gershwin, is available now.

Kristina Marinova: 4 Rhapsodies
Navona Records

The four works on 4 Rhapsodies place considerable demands on a pianist's technical prowess and interpretive sensitivity, but it's a challenge Kristina Marinova ably meets. A native of Plovdiv, Bulgaria, the New York resident is currently readying herself for a concert series in New York, a music festival in France, and her next recording project, Bach's Goldberg Variations. For now, however, there's this superb new collection, which features material by Liszt, Gershwin, Piazzolla, and Erno Dohnányi recorded in April at Oktaven Audio in Mount Vernon, New York. If Dohnányi's titular piece is performed less than the others, it might have to do with the level of musicianship it requires of the performer. Yet Marinova navigates its virtuosic passages and emotional trajectories with such authority, it could well inspire other pianists to take it on too.

One of the reasons why the performances are so strong has to do with the fact that their panoramic range of emotional expression dovetails seamlessly with Marinova's sensibility. As a result, these expressive rhapsodies become something of a cathartic outlet for the pianist. Drama, joy, grief, sadness, melancholy, and more emerge during the recording and even sometimes within a single piece.

Written in in 1902-03, Dohnányi's Four Rhapsodies Op.11 requires the pianist to execute fluidly many alterations in emotion and mood. In contrast to the other pieces on the release, his is not a single-movement work, though a thematic connection lends the material a unifying form; in the fourth rhapsody, for example, traces of the first re-emerge to close the circle. Some scholars apparently regard the half-hour work as a sonata in four movements, with a sonata-allegro, adagio, scherzo, and theme-and-variations following in turn, and it's certainly possible to view the work in that way. The terrain traversed in the opening “Allegro non troppo, ma agitato” is a world unto itself; vividly picturesque, the movement methodically advances through episodes of varying character, all of them masterfully realized by Marinova. If the “Adagio capriccioso” is stately and intensely dramatic in its swells of emotion, the “Vivace”—spirited, impish, and even devilish—is a rollicking good time and the aptly titled “Andante lugubre,” yes, lugubrious but also majestic.

Argentinean composer Astor Piazzolla dedicated the Tango Rhapsody (Adiós Nonino) to his late father, which helps account for its generally melancholy tone. The lyrical piece is a fine exemplar of the composer's revolutionary “Nuevo Tango” style; even more importantly, however, it captures the beauty and humanity of Piazzolla's music. While Marinova's execution of the technically demanding parts dazzles, her rendering of the tender moments impresses as much.

Like Dohnányi's work, Liszt's Rhapsodie Espagnole (Spanish Rhapsody) encompasses a vast range of expression and mood and demands much from its interpreter. Inspired by a trip the composer undertook to Spain, Portugal, and Gibraltar in the 1840s, the work begins its travelogue with a magnificent cadenza and soars thereafter. Folk themes emerge as the trip progresses, with transitions between the parts effected expertly by the pianist. Joy infuses the work's exuberant expressions; as captivating is Marinova's execution of the work's volcanic sections.

Gershwin's beloved Rhapsody in Blue ends the recording on a rapturous note, the celebratory realm it inhabits far unlike that of Piazzolla's Tango Rhapsody. A remarkable synthesis of jazz and classical elements, the piece was conceived by its composer as “a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America—of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our metropolitan madness.” All of its tricky shifts in tone, tempo, and melody are present as the pianist engages with Gershwin's multi-faceted creation fervently. However familiar its contents are, the work never fails to captivate, especially when it's delivered with the kind of conviction Marinova brings to the performance. The same might be said, of course, for the recording as a whole, where nary a misstep occurs during her dynamic treatments.
December 2021