I feel the most important thing in life is to have the beauty of music leading us to the next moment,” said internationally renowned pianist Nina Drath, whose decades-long career in the Coastal Bend will be honored by Corpus Christi Symphony Orchestra on March 7.
A lifelong aficionado of musical arts, she still gives piano lessons every day in her home studio. “I have more than 60 students,” said Drath, whose own lessons began when she was 4 years old and led to a solo debut at age 8. “I am praying, between the concerts and the judging and the groups I belong to, for more hours in the day.”
A few memorable moments in Drath’s impressive career include becoming the first Polish performer in Fort Worth’s Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, taking masterclasses with Martin Canin at Juilliard, receiving a commendation from the American Council for Polish Culture, chairing the American College of Musicians guild and receiving an ambassador medal from then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice after playing piano in the “The Age of Anxiety” by Leonard Bernstein in Lebanon.
Both of Drath’s parents were pianists in Poland, and her father began teaching at Texas A&I in Kingsville. Drath arrived on Texas shores for the first time in 1970 to find “Corpus Christi was completely underwater,” she recalled. “Together with my father, we performed several concerts for the victims of Hurricane Celia.” She continued visiting, and after her marriage to Jerzy Nowicki and the arrival of her son Jan, the family settled permanently in Corpus Christi in 1987.
Drath also founded the Fryderyk Chopin Society of Texas, which celebrated its 35th anniversary last year with an evening of classical piano at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Her own debut at Carnegie Hall occurred on Sept. 27, 1998, consisting of works by fellow Polish pianists Chopin, Szymanowski and Bacewicz, plus Prokofiev.
“The music is in my heart,” Drath said of her home country. One of the greatest surprises of an already illustrious career occurred at Żelazowa Wola, Chopin’s family home, when she learned Maestro Arthur Rubinstein would be in attendance for her performance. “There are many phenomenal pianists, but he played Chopin like Chopin would play,” Drath said. “The Polish land, the Polish folk music and the Polish spirit were talking through him.”
Drath takes the stage with Corpus Christi Symphony Orchestra for “Romantic Masterpieces” on March 7. “This is such an honor for me to play in Corpus Christi. I had tears in my eyes when the maestro told me about the concert.”
She will join Maestro Héctor Guzmán and CCSO for Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20, which she has previously performed in Poland, including a recording with conductor Wojciech Czepiel.
“This is a very dramatic piece, and Mozart was such an enormously sensitive person,” Drath said. “It’s just music from the heart, for the heart.”
