For her album 'Dreamscape', released by Parma/Navona Recordings, she received the Silver Medal for 'Outstanding Achievement' at the Global Music Awards in 2024. In Chopin's Second Piano Concerto and his twenty-four Preludes, she conjures up an uncommonly rich palette of colors. Earlier, she was honored at the Van Cliburn Competition and at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 1983 (the first edition at the time to be broadcast on Flemish public television). When the Queen Elisabeth Competition couldn't take place during the COVID pandemic, the initiative 'The Week of the Queen Top 30' emerged, and Klara listeners voted en masse for Eliane as their all-time favorite performer. And in 2013, Ludwig Van Mechelen of Klassiek Centraal presented her with the Golden Label Career award.
She's been living with her husband in Switzerland for some time now, so we see her less often here. But on January 17, she'll be performing in Beernem, Herentals, and Hasselt. That's why we stopped by for a chat about her birthplace Rio de Janeiro and music education, challenges, and her dog Tommy. Over coffee and cake.
Hello Eliane. A new calendar year: what are your musical expectations?
There's quite a lot lined up—let yourself be surprised!
Things have changed quite a bit for you lately. No more piano lessons at the Antwerp Conservatory now that you're retired.
Art is feeding people with vitamins. Even outside the Conservatory, I can continue to dispense those vitamins. On January 28, we have an event planned in Switzerland with a few people around The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. With a narrator and choreography… anyway, multidisciplinary. The first of many such events in that area!
Wonderful. How many years were you teaching there? What stands out most from that period? They really gave you a phenomenal send-off.
I started teaching at the Music Academy when I was nineteen, and ten years later I began as an instructor at the Conservatory. That's quite a long time, you know. I'm still in touch with a number of my students. They were there at my Conservatory farewell too, with speeches and—how could it be otherwise—live music, flowers, and memories, and that beautiful circle of connection really moved me deeply.
What has stayed with me most is that I gradually learned to understand how people tick. At the beginning, all students are insecure and carry their own issues with them. I found it absolutely fascinating to witness how they could flourish at their best. In group lessons, I noticed that in September they barely spoke to each other and were usually quite tense. By December, things looked completely different! Relaxation is so important when playing music. Playing together with your instrument... How loud and how fast you want to go—everything depends on that. And so proper breathing is absolutely vital. Because only with good breathing can you truly relax. It's also helpful to accept that there's no way around it: you have to work through various phases. If needed, you start by performing just two pages. Such piano training shouldn't cause pain; you should experience it as a form of peace. Then you also learn more easily to share that music with others.
I've learned to work with all kinds of personalities. It's a godsend.
Quite a few of my students have also become teachers or lecturers, and they're all excellent at what they do. I'm incredibly proud of them.
How do you see music education evolving further?
When I was a student myself, I mainly had contact with Jacques Detiège and far less contact with other professors. Meanwhile, the Royal Conservatory Antwerp, as a School of Arts, is now part of AP University College Antwerp with bachelor's and master's degrees. And more theoretical subjects have been added. But even people in the theory field realize that practice is the most important thing, and they take that into account. You still need to pass the entrance exam first. And we all know that you need to already have quite a lot of skills and talents just to be able to start.
Quite a lot has changed in your life. Recently, you moved to Switzerland with your husband. Are you getting used to it there yet? Does it also mean a shift in your concert activities?
In Switzerland, we encounter many nationalities working together with proper respect for one another. Many of those people have a heart for culture, and that's always a pleasure. Recently, I even heard someone speaking Portuguese there, how wonderful: suddenly Brazil was right there in front of me!
I also have a piano nearby where they often hold concerts in all kinds of genres, and I use that piano for my weekly live-stream on Saturday afternoons on Facebook. I started that during lockdown. Even after the COVID pandemic, I've continued doing it. And now in Switzerland, I have an enthusiastic live audience alongside my virtual visitors. How cool!
As for my concert activities: I simply live a bit further away now. An artist knows no borders.
Were you addicted to Switzerland? Because you had your own festival there for more than twenty summers.
You could say that, yes (laughs). Musica Romantica—that's what my festival in Saas-Fee was called—was an extraordinary experience. We had magnificent orchestras from St. Petersburg and Vilnius there, with those stunning mountains all around as a backdrop, conductors like Yuri Serov, Florian Heyerick, and Jaap Van Zweden, and incredible soloists like Yves Storms, Luc Tooten, Vitaly Samoshko, my own daughter Nina Smeets. With posters ranging from Tchaikovsky to Piazzolla and film music. My husband Ernest often had to be alone in Switzerland to prepare the entire festival and keep everything on track—while I was teaching in Antwerp and couldn't be with him. Now I can! We do everything together now, and that's wonderfully pleasant.
Actually, I have that addiction to thank him for. As a little boy, he often spent time in Switzerland with his family and dreamed of a life in that impressive nature. Now I'm making that dream come true together with him. How much happiness can a person have!
Quite a lot of people know you especially as an internationally renowned concert pianist. And as a dedicated teacher. But what happens to the conductor and composer in you?
That composing still exists, but more as improvisation. During the live-streams, I can really enjoy it. And my listeners with me.
During various editions of Musica Romantica, I conducted orchestras, and I really enjoyed doing that. When my husband became more ill, I had to stop—it became practically impossible.
My only goal my whole life has been: to share music with others. Without much ambition, without the affectations of a go-getter, without busily networking extensively. I don't do any of that. Call it serendipity: whatever comes my way, I take it with both hands and cherish it. With a symphonic orchestra or with a chamber ensemble: it makes no difference to me. I go from one moment to the next, step by step.
These days, the Conservatory teaches students how to pitch themselves, how to sell themselves. That's really something of our time. I never learned that, and I don't regret it either. With that serendipity, you're less likely to be disappointed. I'm grateful and happy for everything I've been able to do in my career.
You've lived in Europe longer than you ever lived in Brazil, but that's where you grew up and received your basic training, where you took your first steps in the concert circuit. Do you ever get homesick for Rio de Janeiro? Still in touch?
While we're sitting here at the table, my brother André is walking around in Brazil. That's a pleasant thought. I think it's relatable for quite a few people with a similar background: you're no longer completely at home anywhere and at the same time, you're at home everywhere. That varies from day to day: sometimes I feel like I have no homeland at all. Sometimes I feel like a world citizen through and through. Brazil is an inseparable part of me, and I still speak Portuguese. My children do too, by the way. Homesickness—that mainly comes into play when it's about family.
Family—and then we're also talking about your mother. She's no longer with us. Do you still talk to her?
Yes, I often talk to her in my thoughts. Every time I play Chopin, I think of her. Chopin's music meant a lot in her life. One of the last gifts she received from her son—who died in a car accident at the age of fourteen—was a record by Rubinstein with Chopin's two piano concertos.
That's why I wanted to make a CD with those two concertos in 2024. Unfortunately, she passed away—just as I was making the recordings with Brussels Philharmonic. I made some adjustments to the orchestra's score that weren't originally there, and I wrote a cadenza myself for the end of the first part of the second concerto.
I so wished I could have given her this CD... Still, I hope she was able to experience it somehow and that she's happy with my gift. Whenever I play pieces from Italy, too, I think of her so hard... and her smile.
For years you released albums on the Stylin' Art label, kind of an in-house label. By chance, you started with another label. Is a record label still important for an artist today?
To this day, I believe a record label carries weight because the label not only handles recordings but also facilitates contacts and alliances with other artists. Though the whole online world shouldn't be underestimated today, social media and streaming platforms. That doesn't mean Deutsche Grammophon and the like have weakened; they still radiate considerable power and authority in the world of classical music. But Spotify and so on form an important, democratic force that can't be ignored. tool, especially for lesser-known and/or rising stars. That's why I fully understand that training institutes like the Conservatory include subjects like self-promotion in their curriculum. Social media and streaming platforms are now an integral part of our digital society and create more space for broad communication campaigns and experiments.
Does your piano music change as you grow older?
Of course, doesn't it? A human life evolves along with advancing insights or new emotions, and those bring new, different colors to your interpretations, the way you read a score, or your personal approach to composers. I treasure those nuances. Especially on a Fazioli grand piano—the Italian piano I've been using for so long now—I feel inspiration bubbling up. Honestly, I'm not sure exactly how that works. But yes, especially on a Fazioli, I love exploring new colors. Because I'm so deeply intertwined with the piano—think of a rider and horse that are equally intimately connected. I see the piano as a little boat that gives me the chance to relax and let emotions flow. It seems like an extraordinary gift I've been given, to be able to play piano for so long now.
Someone recently called classical music a 'panacea'—a cure-all that helps everyone with all sorts of ailments.
I completely agree. I actually see it happen when I'm on stage. I see the transformation in the facial expressions of the audience in the hall when they hear music. It's miraculous.
You have a few more concerts lined up in your schedule.
Concerts I'm really looking forward to. On Thursday afternoon, January 15th, I'm bringing a program around Love Poetry with poet and former Klara personality Bart Stouten at OC De Kleine Beer in Beernem. I've worked with him many times before, and it's always a joy.
On Saturday evening, January 17th, I'm a guest at Cultuurcentrum Herentals, together with pianist Stephanie Proot and percussionists Carlo Willems and Koen Wilmaers. Dear colleagues of mine who are affiliated with the Royal Conservatory Antwerp.
That evening we're performing works by Gershwin & Bernstein. Their music leans heavily into jazz, and I really resonate with that—it's like putting on a different jacket.
And on Sunday evening, March 29th, there's another concert at Cultuurcentrum Hasselt.
Not to mention the livestream recitals, of course. Every Saturday afternoon at three o'clock via my Facebook page.
You can find all the other concerts on my website www.elianerodrigues.com
Magnificent. Thank you so much, Eliane!
