This transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Christy L’Esperance: Khatia, we've heard a lot of your playing on Classical KC, but it's nice to hear your voice. Welcome.
Khatia Buniatishvili: That's really nice of you. Thank you.
CL: You'll be performing a lovely mix of solo piano repertoire during your concert here in Kansas City. What do you hope the audience takes away from one of your solo performances compared to when you play a large concerto with an orchestra? Do you feel like they'll get to know you better with the solo music?
KB: I think I have more space somehow, and capacity while I'm playing solo recitals to show a more different palette of emotions. Not simply my personal, but also in general, human emotion.
The recital gives an opportunity to build with a repertoire that you wish, and to build it the way you would like to build it, and to create some kind of dramaturgy, especially the program that I have chosen. It's really like little pearls. It's very labyrinthian. One of my albums is called Labyrinth, and I built in that the same concept which is showing different genres. It stays classical, but I mean, from baroque to contemporary, it shows a different palette, a different emotional palette.
And also this contrast, it somehow shows that we are made of so many different colors, so many different ways of expressing ourselves. But at the end, what counts the most is the emotion it brings and to share together somehow painful but also joyful moments through the music.
CL: Oh, that's fascinating.
So, as you said, your recent “Labyrinth” album includes everything from Bach and Rachmaninoff to film music by Morricone and even John Cage's iconoclastic 4'33". It sounds like you think classical music maybe needs to loosen up a bit. Is that right?
KB: Actually, what I needed was silence. I needed silence between the two last two pieces. I needed space between them. And well, how can you do it? You can just simply put the silence because it was already done by Cage.
So I thought I should put Cage there because it's built about life and death and everything actually that human beings might be.
CL: Did you set up microphones and record yourself sitting at the piano for that track?
KB: I did. I did very precisely.
CL: During your childhood, your home country of Georgia was experiencing some turmoil. However, your parents were an inspiration during this time. I love this line from your bio on your website. It says they were “a model of creativity for smiling in the face of adversity.”
So now that you're a mother yourself, how do you view your role as a musician in a troubled world?
KB: It's very profound and probably truthful to human nature I guess. There are lots of unpleasant things, and I would say tragic things, that happen in the world. I think we should face the reality, but at the same time, we should believe in what happiness is and this happiness is inside ourselves and in these small nuances of life.
We have to try to love our surroundings, people around us and to share this love and it will definitely come back to you. I know it's hard to change the world, but I guess we can make a small contribution by spreading a little bit more love and inner peace and happiness.
I know it's hard to change the world, but I guess we can make a small contribution by spreading a little bit more love and inner peace and happiness.Khatia Buniatishvili
CL: I think that maybe music can do that in a way that some other things can't. It fills that need.
KB: Of course, music, art in general, is one of the most beautiful expressions of human nature. Music with its sound directly touching our feelings and emotions makes us better people, because in that moment we enjoy it and it's healing. That's what brings us to a human understanding of reality and trying to be a little bit better than we were yesterday.
CL: That's wonderful.
When you're preparing for a concert tour, do you find moments here and there to play just for yourself? If so, what music are you drawn to for purely private playing?
KB: Usually it's my own kind of improvising or doing something with the instrument which was not before written. Something that just comes into my mind and through my hands just to let it out, you know? I guess personal, something personal music, which I'm not recording of course, or writing down. It’s meditative for me.
CL: That's beautiful.
Khatia, what a pleasure it is having you on Classical KC.
KB: The pleasure was mine. Thank you so much.
You can learn more about Khatia Buniatishvili at khatiabuniatishvili.com. She performs Tuesday, September 17th at 7pm at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, presented by the Harriman-Jewell Series. Tickets and more information at hjseries.org.
