“In my 30-year career as the Director of the Eastman School of Music, I have had the pleasure to hear a couple of pianists with the highest level of talent and musicianship and one of them was Karolina Syrovatkova”

“The drama concert entitled “Clara, the Woman in the Middle”, presented by Karolina Syrovatkova, was a transporting concert reflecting professionalism at every level. Karolina’s charming, dramatic portrayal of Clara Schumann gave our listeners insights into Clara’s love affair and marriage to Robert, their relationship to Johannes Brahms, and Clara’s attempt to balance family and professional life. This drama was punctuated with Karolina’s musical performance of Brahms, R. Schumann and C. Schumann. Her interpretation of the music reflected deep understanding and sensitivity to the romantic style of these composers. As one audience member said, ‘it was a magical evening for all of us.””

“About “Clara:”
I can say that it was one of the most sensational music/ drama performances I have ever witnessed. The “acting” was superb – Karolina “was” Clara Schumann , and in my 76 years of listening to and watching musical performances, I have never seen or heard a better performance on the piano. The image of those lovely sensitive fingers stroking the keys of the piano will live long in my mind.
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“I recently attended a piano concert with Karolina portraying Clara, wife of Robert Schumann. Karolina was utterly charming as Clara as she told us the inside story of their love affair and subsequent marriage followed by the couple’s relationship with Johannes Brahms. I particularly enjoyed hearing Clara tell us about how she and Robert communicated through music as she played pieces composed by Robert during the time they were forbidden by her father to be in contact with one another. The evening was a memorable learning experience as well as a beautiful piano concert. I have told numerous friends about Karolina’s talent and highly recommend her concert to music lovers everywhere.
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“a true poet of the piano”

“Experiencing Karolina Syrovatkova’s playing is a delight on many levels. Her technical proficiency is enormous but only serves as a foundation for the layers of passion and understanding that she brings to the music. Watching her perform adds enormously to the experience, for her movements are beautiful and express her deep union with the music. ”

“Karolina Syrovatkova’s portrayal of Clara Schumann was mesmerizing and I think each of us sitting at our table believed we had experienced a realistic peek into this remarkable woman’s life. The music played by Karolina was beautifully played and included pieces several of us had not heard before but enjoyed tremendously.
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“Karolina Syrovatkova – Musical Phenomenon

After a performance of a Mozart piano sonata by Karolina Syrovatkova in Aspen, John O’Connor of Shenandoah University excitedly said to her, “I have played that sonata a hundred times and have heard it played another hundred, and that is the best performance I have ever heard.”

What Professor O’Connor had heard was the result of enormous talent, intelligence, hard work, misfortune, adversity, passion, perseverance and eventual triumph.

Karolina was born and grew up in Prague in a musical family; she learned to play on a piano that had belonged to Smetana. At 19 she had the chance to come to the Sewanee Summer Music Festival in Tennessee. There she won the concerto competition and played with the Festival Orchestra. She was then able to come to the University of Maryland on scholarship. The first two years went very well with straight A’s though she had never had a formal course in English and no math courses in the previous three years. Then misfortune struck; she developed such pain in her arms that she had to completely stop playing. She took a semester off, returned to Europe and studied German at Tübingen and Italian at Perugia. The rest for her arms helped but the pain returned when she began playing again. Many treatments from conventional physical therapy to acupuncture were tried without success. Only when she began working with an Alexander Technique teacher did improvement begin. She took great pleasure in all her courses from astronomy to Egyptian art and graduated summa cum laude and ΦΒΚ. At this point, she could have entered many types of music-related work which would not have placed demands on her arms, but she was absolutely dedicated to performance. She could not live without it.

But, although her arms were better, she did not feel that she could subject them to the strain of entering piano competitions, so she looked to graduate school. While an undergraduate, she had participated in the Aspen Summer Music Festival, where she worked with Anton Nel of the University of Texas, Austin. After looking at several schools, she went to Texas to study with Nel. There she was delighted to learn that in Austin there was also a program of study to become an Alexander teacher. With characteristic thoroughness, she enrolled in it and completed her Alexander training at approximately the same time that she received her DMA from Texas.

One of her collaborative recitals was awarded best of the year, and her lecture recital was declared “stunning” by Nel. Her written analysis of a piece on one of her comprehensive examinations was so good that the reader of the exam asked to know who had written it so the he could congratulate the student. Now you may say, “What does that have to do with performance?” Well, the analysis is the rediscovery of what was going on in the mind of the composer and thus has everything to do with faithful performance.

So what Professor O’Connor heard was a performance informed by a deep and thorough understanding of the music by a pianist conscious of exactly how she was using each and every muscle, deeply in love with the music and passionately determined to reveal its beauty to her hearers.

As part of her study of a piece of music, Karolina learns all she can about the life of the composer. To share that understanding, she has awakened a talent hidden for many years. At age 10 and 11 she was a child actress in hour-long movies made for TV. For one of these, she won “best actress of the year” in an international competition. Now, she uses that talent to offer an evening in which she plays a woman close to a great composer to tell his story and to play his music. The delightful combination opens understanding in a way hard to believe possible.

We live in a world that wants to put people in slots. You are either a pianist or an Alexander teacher, not both. No, Karolina is both, and a better Alexander teacher for being a pianist and a better pianist and piano teacher for being an Alexander teacher. You are either a concert pianist or you have a DMA and are a teacher. No, Karolina is both. You are either a pianist or an actress. No, Karolina is both. If you don’t believe this, then find some way to encounter Karolina and see for yourself.
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“a true artist who understands elegance, noblesse and creativity”