Today we’d like to introduce you to Kathleen Supové

Hi Kathleen, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?

I’m a pianist/composer who performs, records, curates and teaches music of our time, including my own. My story started when I began noodling around on the family piano. My Dad, a hardened old-schooler, always wanted a daughter who played the piano. He couldn’t have imagined what he got himself into! I started normal classical piano training kind of late, almost aged nine, but grew bored with the pieces I was playing. My dad astutely saw this and sent me to Elesa Scott Keeney, who would light the fire that allowed me to continue and thrive into the teenage years. She also gave me a passion for light classics and American rhythms. Eventually, this led to my interest in and affinity for contemporary music. I continued a classical music education (B.A. in music from Pomona College, M.M. in Piano from The Juilliard School), but pursued this interest in newly made music and the people who created it. Advanced study in Boston with pianist Russell Sherman taught me most of what I can do well, and I admired that he had made a name for himself with some groundbreaking new music recordings. When I became a professional, it was to promote this music, not to play Bach and Beethoven! I felt that this was my “wheelhouse”, I could CREATE performing tradition, and I felt no need to be the gazillionth person to play classical music in a calcified tradition. I won top prizes at the Gaudeamus Contemporary Music Interpreters’ competition in Holland, and that led to an invitation to the legendary Darmstadt Festival in Germany. After that I launched the now long-running series “The Exploding Piano”, my enterprise that involved premiering new works, finding new media to work with, adding elements from other disciplines such as art, film, and technology, as well as finding new venues and audiences that have heretofore been excluded. A few years ago, I started composing, and now I perform my own works as well. Last season, I received a New York Council of the Arts commission to create an evening length work for myself, about the subject of confinement (inspired by the COVID pandemic). I continue to always be on the lookout for new creators, new work from familiar creators, new modes of expression, and new ways to present things to our changing and turbulent world.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?

One of the biggest obstacles I faced early on was not having a mentor. Beyond my growing up years, I never had a teacher who took me under their wing. I saw that it could be a huge boost for those that did. These teacher-influencers could recommend favorite students to concert venues, managers, etc. To this day, it’s often a struggle to get venues to program living composers—especially, pianists!! They’re expecting Brahms, Chopin, and Beethoven! It’s changing fast, though, especially in recent years. After the pandemic, there were many fewer venues for music presentation, that was totally an obstacle. We’re still coming out of that, little by little, each new season. On a more global level, a general issue for my niche is making people aware that there are composers out there writing concert music! Classical music itself is such a small market. And NEW music is a tiny part of that!

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?

As a pianist, I specialize in something that is off the beaten path to most: premiering, performing, recording, and promoting concert music being written by today’s composers (the Beethovens of our time). I guess I’m most proud of having made my way in this vast music world of unbelievable talent, being part of important music that is being created and given to audiences. When I was in college, I used to go to the music library and see recordings, read liner notes about performers and composers involved in the music scene of the late 20th Century. Quite a few years after I graduated, I came back and gave a recital at this college (Pomona). I realized that I’d become one of those people! One thing that separates me from many in my niche is that I do primarily solo concerts. A lot of new music pianists end up playing in ensembles, doing other things. The solo endeavor has always interested me the most, but you also have to be a DIY kind of person. I also use lots of experimental and multimedia elements in concerts and really try to give a show! My hope is that it’s unique. In the last 4 years or so, I’ve begun to compose, and now I’m dividing my time between practicing other people’s music and making my own. Though I don’t usually play in ensembles, I have had two wonderful collaborations in the last few years: with techno legend Jeff Mills, a piece called Tomorrow Comes the Harvest; and with singer-songwriter-icon Michelle Shocked, a co-composed song cycle called Shocking Red. I should also mention that, besides other humans, I’ve worked with robots, virtual reality, video, graphic scores (designs that aren’t music notation, but more like art work to be performed), and soon, puppets!

Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?

In the early days of it, there was super direct impact: most of our concerts we had on the books came to a halt! Concerts are still happening that were postponed due to COVID!

After some months, I began to get concerts that were live streamed (you could tune into them, via Zoom of the venue website). One of the things we all learned to do was play with a mask on! Sometimes we could go mask-less, if others were far enough away. A positive thing that came out of this, I feel, was venues realizing that this could be done. So many concerts are now offered with a choice of live/in person or streamed online. Online is never the same as being there in person…we realize that so much now! BUT for me, it can mean I’ll be able to hear music in a concert I wouldn’t otherwise be able to attend at all. And of course, like all businesses, we musicians have also discovered the value of remote meetups.

Pricing:

• My concerts are generally fairly reasonably priced, compared to theater or Broadway.
• The best bargain in NYC is cheap seats at the Metropolitan Opera! The acoustics are great. You will always see something that is fantastically produced.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://supove.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kathyexploding/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/supove/ or https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100032453241936
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathleen-supove-360410229/
• Twitter: https://x.com/supove
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=kathleen+supove+youtube
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/kathyexploding
• Other: linktr.ee/kathyexploding on my Instagram page, has the most up to date activity information

Image Credits

In order that they are seen here:

1. Ana Raquel
2, Hiroyuki Ito
3. Lara St. John
4. Rosśa Crean
5. Falaah Shabazz
6. Angellos Ioannis Malefakis
7. Aleksandr Karjaka
8. Shaya Bendix Lyon