Roman Kofman will direct the fifth Vladimir Horowitz Memorial Piano Competition

I met orchestra conductor Roman Kofman the day before his departure to Germany as this season’s chief conductor of the Bonn Opera’s Beethoven Symphony Orchestra. Shortly afterward he would conduct Arnold Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder, a composition written for the largest orchestra in the history of music. He would also perform Shostakovich’s 14th Symphony with Anatoly Kocherha and Mariya Hulehyna. The sad fact remains that people abroad know more about this major event in Maestro Kofman’s career than at home in Ukraine.

Mr. Kofman, you’ve just ended the rehearsal. How was it?

We are preparing for a regular concert of Ukrainian music. The program includes Valentyn Bibyk’s Summer Music dedicated to me, Oleksandr Kostyn’s new button accordion and string concerto, and Mozart’s 40th Symphony.

Will you have a tight schedule at the Bonn Opera?

They stage six premieres every year, with two premieres to be handled by the chief conductor every year under the contract. During the year they perform four grand operas, including one kept in the baroque style and one classical operetta. Personally, I plan to stage Alban Berg’s Lulu and Verdi’s Macbeth; the next season it will be Ernst Krenek’s Life of Orestes, Eugene Onegin, and then either Zimmerman’s Soldiers or Janacek’s From the House of the Dead, to be followed by Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. The Shostakovich jubilee season will be highlighted by his satirical opera The Nose. Also, I hope to have my cherished dream come true: two operas with the same plot staged on the same night, Rachmaninoff’s Aleko and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci. The Schumann year will be marked by his opera Genoveva. By the way, there is still that house in Bonn where the composer liked to stay on his visits — and the drugstore is still on the first floor.

While in Bonn, will you conduct only your own productions?

The choice will be mine. I may conduct others’ productions as well and I may entrust my renditions to other conductors. The only contractual limitation is that I must conduct twenty performances during the season.

Are you preparing new productions in Kyiv, at the Opera Studio of the National Music Academy?

No, not likely. I used to stage and direct productions at the studio and it took a lot of time. And I have no contracts with the Kyiv Opera, meaning that my opera work will be in Bonn.

What about recordings of late?

There is a CD with arias and orchestral pieces from Tchaikovsky, starring Julia Varadi and Munich Radio Orchestra; another CD recorded in Brussels with the National Symphony Orchestra of Belgium, containing works by Belgian composer Jongen (practically unknown in Ukraine): two symphonic poems and a cello concerto, and one with modern German compositions with the MDR Orchestra. I have started recording all of Shostakovich’s fifteen symphonies in March, starting with the 10th (I will record the 9th in June, the 5th in November, and so on). The recording company’s policy is to release every symphony as soon as I record it. And I was honored and happy to accept the offer to record all Beethoven’s symphonies with the Bonn orchestra.

How and when will you start working for the Bonn Opera?

They are staging Macbeth and Lulu in September. The orchestra will be back from vacations September 3 and we will have the first rehearsal. Macbeth will premiere September 21 and Lulu on October 1. That’s how they work. I’m flying to Bonn to attend the competition for the second conductor and start rehearsing a concert; also, there will be two preliminary rehearsals of Lulu and Macbeth.

Does your Bonn contract mean that you will have to refuse to conduct other orchestras?

Certainly not. I have a concert agent. This summer I will have concerts and recordings in Cologne with the Western German Radio Orchestra and also concerts with the National Symphony Orchestra of Belgium (I work with it on a regular basis). Now, considering my new status, neither my concert agent, nor the Bonn orchestra would allow me to accept any minor offers.

Have you stopped playing the violin?

I stopped at an early stage, over twenty years ago. Either you play well and practice regularly or you quit. I had to do it because I had no time for it. Although you may have watched Ukrainian television with its New Year program a couple of months ago. There was Hayden’s Unfinished Symphony and in the end the orchestra left the audience with only two violinists playing the last movement. I was one of them. In fact, the famous Nathan Rakhlin also ended the symphony that way.

You have taught music for a long time. Do you often recall your professors?

I used to have many. As for conducting, formally I had only one: Mikhail Kanerstein. I started and graduated from the conservatory under his able guidance. He was an outstanding teacher, producing many conductors eventually conferred the prestigious titles People’s Artiste and Meritorious Artiste, becoming chief conductors and professors. Teaching orchestra conducting is very difficult. The conservatory’s operatic and symphony conducting department enrolls two or three students a year, more often than not with a post-secondary music education. I would tell everyone, “Congratulations, you are enrolled in the Conservatory of Music. But please bear in mind that I don’t know how to conduct; what I know only too well is how not to conduct. I promise that I will make every effort to prevent you doing it wrong.” As for my original conservatory major, violin, I had a multitude of professors. Two were fantastic. Regrettably, I became a student of Joseph Gutmann, pupil of the celebrated Karl Flesch, too late; I was 14. Later, as a conservatory student, I found myself in Vitold Portugalov’s class (he had been a pupil of Leopold Auer, founder of the Russian violin school). Unlike many, I didn’t plan to become a conductor and I took it up by accident when I was 29.

You will be introduced as a conductor from Ukraine abroad. What do people in the West know about our country?

I believe that Ukraine still remains to be identified there. The process is just beginning — and it is not always a pleasant one, I regret to admit. I happened to see my guest card at the German hotel I’ve always stayed at. It read: Roman Kofman, Kiew, Russland. And this is in Bonn, only recently the capital of West Germany, and at an hotel in the central square!

Reading newspaper clippings with reviews on the concerts of the Kyiv Philharmonic in Germany, I spotted a heading reading “Brilliant Performance by Russian Orchestra.” In the West, some regard Ukraine suspiciously, others with confusion, still others say, “We know the boxing brothers Klitschko, now we know yet another Ukrainian by the name of Kofman.” Some might mention the soccer player Andriy Shevchenko (alas, no one has heard about Taras Shevchenko). Here is the latest example. My appointment as chief conductor of the Bonn orchestra had quite some press coverage in Germany, unlike Ukraine. Few know about it at home. Large articles were carried by the central German newspapers Die Welt, Sueddeutche Zeitung, and Frankfurter Allgemeine. All posed the same question: How could a man from an obscure country such as Ukraine be selected from all the other conductors to perform in Bonn, the hometown of Beethoven in the heart of Germany? My appointment gave rise to questions, but no one showed a negative attitude to me personally.

How often do you plan to visit Kyiv?

This year I was offered to head the jury of the Vladimir Horowitz Piano Contest featuring young performers. I will also try to give concerts. The next are scheduled for April 4 and June 1. In between (May 14), I plan a concert with the student orchestra of the National Music Academy. The academy leadership asked me to take care of it and I will.