Naida Cole
Encyclopedia
Naida Margaret Cole (born 28 October 1974 in Durham, North Carolina
Durham, North Carolina
Durham is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the county seat of Durham County and also extends into Wake County. It is the fifth-largest city in the state, and the 85th-largest in the United States by population, with 228,330 residents as of the 2010 United States census...
, U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
) is a Canadian-American concert pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
who left a successful career as a recording artist and touring musician in 2007 to pursue medicine at Brown University's Warren Alpert Medical School, where she is currently enrolled.
Cole's website and Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
pages state that she is a Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
native; furthermore, the personal site points out that Cole is dividing her time between the two disciplines, rather than abandoning the one outright for the other. In a rare interview with Karishmeh Felfeli
Karishmeh Felfeli
Karishmeh Felfeli is a radio broadcaster, pianist, vocalist and creator of , a critically acclaimed classical music and arts radio program for Dublin City FM...
for Dublin City FM
Dublin City FM
103.2 Dublin City FM is an Independent Local Radio station in Dublin, Ireland, operated by Dublin Public Service Radio Association Ltd, under a sound broadcasting contract from the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland. The station broadcasts on the 103.2 MHz FM frequency...
Cole spoke about her reasons for pursuing medicine and why the life of a full-time concert artist was no longer for her.
Early life
Cole was born in the USA, lived in Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom as a child, and moved to Canada in 1984. She graduated from The Royal Conservatory of Music in TorontoToronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
at the age of 13, making her the second youngest to receive the school's ARCT degree (the youngest was Glenn Gould
Glenn Gould
Glenn Herbert Gould was a Canadian pianist who became one of the best-known and most celebrated classical pianists of the 20th century. He was particularly renowned as an interpreter of the keyboard music of Johann Sebastian Bach...
); at RCM she studied with Marina Geringas. She later studied piano at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
with the pianist and conductor Leon Fleisher
Leon Fleisher
Leon Fleisher is an American pianist and conductor.-Early life and studies:Fleisher was born in San Francisco, where he started studying the piano at age four...
, and flute with flutist Robert Willoughby. Other studies brought her to the Fondazione Internazionale per il pianoforte
International Piano Academy Lake Como
The International Piano Academy Lake Como is a music school. Seven pianists, chosen annually from a worldwide field of 400 applicants including many international prizewinners, have the opportunity of studying with a faculty whose core membership past and present includes such stellar artists as...
in Cadenabbia
Cadenabbia
Cadenabbia is a small community in Lombardy, Italy, in the province of Como, on the west shore of Lake Como. The community is part of the comune of Griante, situated about 15 miles by steamer from the town of Como, between the communities of Menaggio and Tremezzo.Cadenabbia is a favorite spring...
, Italy, and to the University of Montreal, where she earned her Masters in Music and studied with Marc Durand. Her decision to become a pianist was made while she attended Chetham's School of Music
Chetham's School of Music
Chetham's School of Music , familiarly known as "Chets", is a specialist independent co-educational music school, situated in Manchester city centre, in North West England. It was established in 1969, incorporating Chetham's Hospital School, founded as a charity school by Humphrey Chetham in 1653...
.
Career
She has recorded music by FauréGabriel Fauré
Gabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...
, Chabrier
Emmanuel Chabrier
Emmanuel Chabrier was a French Romantic composer and pianist. Although known primarily for two of his orchestral works, España and Joyeuse marche, he left an important corpus of operas , songs, and piano music as well...
, Satie and Ravel
Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
. She has also presented the music of Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...
, Bartok
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...
, Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
, Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
, Chabrier, Chopin
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
, Corigliano
John Corigliano
John Corigliano is an American composer of classical music and a teacher of music. He is a distinguished professor of music at Lehman College in the City University of New York.-Biography:...
, Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
, Fauré, Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
, Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
, Rachmaninoff
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music...
, Ravel, Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
, Clara Schumann
Clara Schumann
Clara Schumann was a German musician and composer, considered one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era...
, Scriabin
Alexander Scriabin
Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin was a Russian composer and pianist who initially developed a lyrical and idiosyncratic tonal language inspired by the music of Frédéric Chopin. Quite independent of the innovations of Arnold Schoenberg, Scriabin developed an increasingly atonal musical system,...
and Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
. She has performed with the Toronto Symphony, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra
Montreal Symphony Orchestra
Orchestre symphonique de Montréal is a symphony orchestra based in Montréal, Québec, Canada, with Montréal's Place des Arts as its home.-History:...
and National Arts Centre Orchestra
National Arts Centre Orchestra
The National Arts Centre Orchestra is an orchestra in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada's capital. It is a classically-sized ensemble currently conducted by Pinchas Zukerman.-Description:Since 1998, Pinchas Zukerman has been the Music Director. Mario Bernardi C.C...
s and also with Gidon Kremer
Gidon Kremer
Gidon Kremer is a Latvian violinist and conductor. In 1980 he left the USSR and settled in Germany.-Biography:Kremer was born in Riga to parents of German-Jewish and Latvian-Swedish origins. He began playing the violin at the age of four, receiving instruction from his father and his grandfather,...
's Kremerata Baltica
Kremerata Baltica
Kremerata Baltica is a chamber orchestra consisting of young musicians from Baltic countries . It was founded by Gidon Kremer in 1997.The name is a pun on camerata, the general word applying to various chamber music groups....
, the London Sinfonietta
London Sinfonietta
The London Sinfonietta is an English chamber orchestra founded in 1968 and based in London. The ensemble specialises in contemporary music and works across a wide range of genres, performing modern classics alongside world premieres, and includes music by electronica artists as well as folk and...
and the Munich
Munich Philharmonic Orchestra
The Münchner Philharmoniker is a German symphony orchestra located in the city of Munich. It is one of Munich's three principal orchestras, along with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Bavarian State Orchestra...
, Warsaw
Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra
The Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra , one of Poland's premier musical institutions, was established in 1901 on the initiative of an assembly of Polish aristocrats and financiers, as well as musicians...
and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society is a society based in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, that organises concerts and other events mainly in the field of classical music. The society is the second oldest of its type in the United Kingdom and its orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic...
s.
She is an exclusive Decca recording artist. Her first recording (of music by Fauré, Chabrier, Satie and Ravel) was released on Deutsche Grammophon, and was named one of the Critics’ Favourite CDs of 2001 by Gramophone Magazine. BBC Music Magazine
BBC music magazine
BBC Music Magazine is a magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom by BBC Worldwide, the commercial subsidiary of the BBC. Reflecting the broadcast output of BBC Radio 3, the magazine is devoted primarily to classical music, though with sections on jazz and world music. Each edition comes...
awarded it five (out of five) stars. She has performed regularly with Gidon Kremer
Gidon Kremer
Gidon Kremer is a Latvian violinist and conductor. In 1980 he left the USSR and settled in Germany.-Biography:Kremer was born in Riga to parents of German-Jewish and Latvian-Swedish origins. He began playing the violin at the age of four, receiving instruction from his father and his grandfather,...
and with his ensemble Kremerata Baltica
Kremerata Baltica
Kremerata Baltica is a chamber orchestra consisting of young musicians from Baltic countries . It was founded by Gidon Kremer in 1997.The name is a pun on camerata, the general word applying to various chamber music groups....
, and appeared on their recording After Mozart.
Naida Cole has been a Yamaha Artist
Yamaha Artist
The term Yamaha Artist refers to musical instrumentalists who choose, officially, to play any of a large group of Yamaha musical instruments....
since 1997.
Discography
| title | label | date | catalog number | notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Naida Cole: Faure, Chabrier, Satie, Ravel | Decca | 13 February 2001 | 748 021-2 | |
| 2. | Reflections: Ravel, Bartok, Liszt | Decca | 11 February 2003 | 472 464-2 |
Awards
- Tenth Van Cliburn International Piano CompetitionVan Cliburn International Piano CompetitionThe Van Cliburn International Piano Competition was first held in 1962 in Fort Worth, Texas and is hosted by Van Cliburn Foundation. It was created by Fort Worth area teachers in honor of Van Cliburn, who had won the first International Tchaikovsky Competition four years prior with Tchaikovsky's...
(1997)- Phyllis Jones Tilley Memorial Award for Best Performance of Commissioned Work
- Steven De Groote Memorial Award for Best Performance of Chamber Music
- Semifinalist
- Juno AwardJuno Awards of 2000The Juno Awards of 2000 were held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada during the weekend of 11-12 March 2000.The primary ceremonies were hosted by The Moffatts at the SkyDome on 12 March 2000 and broadcast on CBC Television...
(2000): Nominee, Best Classical Album (Solo or Chamber Ensemble)