About

Rodolfo is a Fellow of the 2022 edition of the Gilmore Piano Festival and was invited to the inaugural edition of the Forte/Piano Summer Academy of historical pianos at Cornell University. He has recently performed at the Strasbourg Conservatory in France and recorded a work by Hugues Dufourt in the presence of the composer. The recording was released in 2023 as part of a CD with Dufourt’s Complete Piano Works by Coviello Classics (Darmstadt). The recording was chosen “contemporary album of the week”, by France Musique, one of the five notable classical recordings of 2023 by Swiss Radio RTS and “coup de coeur” of the Académie Charles Cros— the French Recording Academy.

Rodolfo received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Performance from Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music. At Northwestern, he studied with James Giles and was the 2017-2018 recipient of the Alvia S. and Helen Cottongim Award for musical and academic excellence. In his dissertation he studied the impact of the eighteenth-century musical tradition in the works of Franz Schubert.

Before moving to the United States, Rodolfo spent several years in Europe. At the Académie Supérieure de Musique de Strasbourg in France, he studied with Amy Lin, who instilled in him a passion for the musical tradition of Artur Schnabel and the Viennese repertoire. Under Ms. Lin’s guidance, he earned a Performance Diploma and a Master’s Degree in Piano with Honors. Determined to continue exploring this repertoire, Rodolfo went on to study with Margarita Höhenrieder at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich, Germany, sponsored by the European Union’s Erasmus Program.

During his years in Europe, Rodolfo was fortunate to receive further support and artistic advice from Cristina Ortiz and Débora Halász.

An avid chamber musician, Rodolfo has collaborated in a variety of formations such as duos with cello, viola, oboe or clarinet, trios, quartets and also with singers. Through these experiences he benefitted from the advice of Friedemann Berger, Duo Melis, Helen Callus, W. Stephen Smith and Christian Ivaldi. His collaboration with the Quatuor Adastra led him to chamber recitals in Strasbourg and at the Festival d’Autan in the south of France.

Rodolfo began his musical studies in his native Brazil and at the age of thirteen became a student of Dirce Bauer Knijnik, a pupil of Guiomar Novaes and Carlo Zecchi. In 2010 he earned a Bachelor’s degree from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre as a student of Cristina Capparelli. It was still in Brazil that Rodolfo became interested in performance practice research and co-translated the book “Liszt-Pädagogium” written by Liszt’s pupil Lina Ramann (Ed. Sulina, 2012). Later he also collaborated with the documentary film Artur Schnabel: No Place of Exile (Artur Schnabel: Komponist im Exil), broadcasted by European TV-channel ARTE in February 2018. 

In parallel to his formal studies, Rodolfo participated in the International Summer Academies of the Mozarteum in Salzburg and Nancy, as well as the International Keyboard Institute and Festival in New York. He has had the chance to play for artists such as:  Alexander Korsantia, Andrzej Jasinski, Jean-Philippe Collard, Paul Schenly, Peter Frankl and Ricardo Castro.

Rodolfo is Visiting Assistant Professor of Music and Director of the Piano Area at Whitman College. He was previously on the faculty of Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music where he taught Piano Literature.

MUSIC

Rodolfo teaches in English, Portuguese, French and German.

RESEARCH

Research has had an important role in Rodolfo’s life since his undergraduate years at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) in Brazil. He was the recipient of a research scholarship from the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) collaborating with the Group of Research in Performance Practice of the graduate program in music of that university. During those years, he worked mainly on research related to Latin-American composers of the 20th century. 

It was still as an undergraduate student that he worked on the first translation into Portuguese of the book “Liszt-Pädagogium” (Franz Liszt, o Pedagogo, Ed. Sulina, 2012) alongside Dr. Cristina Capparelli and Dr. Stefanie Freitas. This was a project organized by Italian musicologist Rossana Dalmonte and the Fondazione Istituto Liszt in Bologna, Italy. Years later, in the Spring of 2016, Rodolfo had the chance to work directly with Dr. Dalmonte for a couple of weeks at the Library of the Istituto Liszt.

During his years in Europe, Rodolfo worked intensely on the musical tradition of Artur Schnabel. Schnabel’s concepts of rhythm, meter and phrasing remain a central aspect of his studies and practice. Rodolfo has also worked as a freelance researcher, for instance collaborating in the documentary film Artur Schnabel: No Place of Exile, broadcasted in Europe by TV-channel ARTE in 2018 as well as with major publishers of pedagogical piano music in the United States. 

As part of his doctoral dissertation, Rodolfo embarked on a fascinating investigation of eighteenth-century sources in musical composition and performance. Supervised by Dr. Danuta Mirka and influenced by recent advances in the study of late eighteenth-century sources in music theory, he applied this knowledge to the music of Franz Schubert, embracing aspects of rhetoric, meter and performance practice.

Doctoral dissertation:

In Search of Clear Execution: An Eighteenth-Century Approach to Franz Schubert’s Piano Sonata in A Major D. 959. Advisor: Danuta Mirka, Northwestern University, 2022.

An eighteenth-century approach to Schubert’s music is an unexplored field. Most studies on his music rely on modern tools of formal analysis, and yet it is known that Schubert grew up in an environment largely influenced by the tradition of late eighteenth-century musicians. The present study investigates the musical form and execution of his Piano Sonata in A major D. 959 through the lens of this tradition. Two sources are used: Heinrich Christoph Koch’s Versuch einer Anleitung zur Composition and Daniel Gottlob Türk’s Klavierschule. Koch’s composition handbook casts light upon aspects of phrase structure and meter, and it highlights the idea of musical punctuation. Türk’s principle of the clarity of execution, elucidated in his handbook of keyboard performance, proposes a systematic mapping of notes that should be emphasized by players and points of separation between segments, with the goal of providing an intelligible and eloquent delivery of the musical text. The contribution of both authors allows us for a deeper understanding of conventions of the musical language shared by Schubert and his predecessors. My analysis of D. 959 shows that Schubert was indebted to those conventions and adhered to Koch’s and Türk’s precepts, which put the real-time listening experience of historical audiences at the center of composition and performance.

Master’s thesis:

Artur Schnabel et l’expression de la structure: une analyse de son interprétation du premier mouvement de la Sonate op. 110 de Beethoven (Artur Schnabel and the expression of structure: an analysis of his interpretation of the first movement of Beethoven’s Sonata op. 110). Advisor: Alessandro Arbo, Université de Strasbourg, 2016. 

A study on the many tools used by Artur Schnabel in order to convey the structure of Beethoven’s Sonata op. 110. It is based on an investigation of his pedagogy, in particular his principles of melodic and rhythmic articulation, as well as the teaching of his disciples. The results are then confronted with an analysis of his recording to identify the precise combination of musical and pianistic elements used by him to realize his ideas. 

Contact

If you have any questions related to concerts, lessons, research work, etc, please feel free to contact me and I will get back to you. Thank you!

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