Suite 101 (Canada)
by Sarah Canice Funke
Mar 14 2008

Grace Nikae is a world-class classical pianist. She is also a blogger and photographer who brings together fans in a community of music and arts loving.

The next generation of pianists has discovered how to integrate “Web 2.0″ with classical music: whether it’s YouTube clips of her performances or Flickr photographs for press releases or blog entries with commenting features, Grace Nikae not only captivates audiences in live concert, but seeks to attract them virtually as well, facilitating a community of music lovers. Visitors are encouraged to create an account, login and start contributing comments and sharing their own content.

Notes and Photographs: A Classical Pianist’s Hobbies
The concept is not unique: many young classical musicians have MySpace pages that also serve as community-building websites. Fans have a chance to interact with their favorite musicians. Indeed, a quick browse through Grace Nikae’s interactive website reveals another side to the life of this musician. A trip to the concert hall would reveal Grace Nikae’s feats on the keyboard, but her blog demonstrates her apparent love for the photographer’s lens. Taking advantage of the ease of digital cameras and an online photo hosting site, Nikae takes curious readers on a visual tour of the life of a concert pianist, highlighting what otherwise might have been mundane details.

At Home and Abroad: Tradition and the Avant Garde
But it is for her touch that shimmers over the keys which makes Grace Nikae known around the world. Regularly appearing with symphonies in America, Europe and Asia, Nikae has also accumulated a sizable list of accomplishments. In 2000, she won the Artist’s International Auditions. In 2002, she took home the first prize in piano at the 2002 Sorantin International Young Artist Competition. In 2005, she won the Hawaii Music Award in Classical Music.

Grace Nikae treats both tradition and avant-garde with equal respect. Her 2006-2007 season featured not only a tour de force of the entire collection of Beethoven sonatas (each one of the 32 sonatas a mini-symphony in scope), but Nikae also performed the piano works of 20th-century artists Ives, Schoenberg, Stockhausen, Ligeti, Kurtag, Xenakis, Boulez, Carter, Cage and Crumb in a musical exploration of the world of sound.

Nikae has also recorded one album to date, entitled Fantasies. This recording features piano works by Alexander Scriabin, Enrique Granados, Manuel de Falla and Franz Liszt. Nikae’s interests are educational as well: she regularly gives workshops, masterclasses, recital lectures and interdisciplinary lectures connecting music to other fields in the arts (such as French Impressionism or German Romantic Poetry).

Listeners who want a fast and easy introduction to Grace Nikae should view a clip of her performance of the Third Movement of Rachmaninoff’s 1st Concerto, available on YouTube.

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