Interview with jazz pianist Ramona Horvath

In this interview, Céline Gaurier-Joubert talks with jazz pianist Ramona Horvath about her arrangement of Stevie Wonder’s “You Are the Sunshine of My Life”, from her trio album ABSINTHE.

Ramona looks back on her journey from a rigorous classical training in Bucharest to jazz, on the music she grew up with, and on the years in Paris that shaped her playing. She also shares her advice for classically trained adults who would love to improvise but don’t know where to begin.

Interview by Céline Gaurier-Joubert

Céline Gaurier-Joubert: I first discovered your playing on YouTube through your interpretation of You Are the Sunshine of My Life. I came across it quite by chance, simply because of my love of jazz, and it immediately stayed with me.

I also trained as a concert pianist, although in Paris rather than Bucharest, and my own background is firmly rooted in classical music. Despite that, I have always felt a deep attraction to jazz and did spend some time trying to study it, though with rather limited success.

During the working week, I generally avoid listening to music altogether. I find that it helps me remain emotionally neutral and entirely focused on my work. Yet the moment I finish on Friday evening, the first piece I put on — and the last piece I listen to as well — is your version of You Are the Sunshine of My Life. This has now been my ritual for almost a year.

Every time I hear it, I feel an immediate sense of joy. The groove is extraordinary, but what fascinates me even more is the architecture of the arrangement. Every element seems to arrive at precisely the right moment, with such naturalness that nothing ever feels forced or calculated.

What astonishes me most is that your interpretation feels almost like an entirely new composition, while never losing the spirit, warmth and identity of the original song. That balance is quite remarkable.

Even after listening to it repeatedly — sometimes thirty times in succession — I still find myself surprised by it. There is always something in the phrasing, harmony, rhythm or interaction that draws my attention again.

I would be genuinely fascinated to know how you approached the arrangement. How did you arrive at something so original and personal while preserving the soul of the song so completely?

Ramona Horvath: First of all, thank you for listening to and enjoying my music 🙂 There’s nothing more rewarding for me than knowing that my music brings people joy and makes them want to listen to it again and again.

Well, I’m a huge Stevie Wonder fan, and “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” was one of the tunes I listened to a lot as a kid. Back then, I used to pick up the tunes I loved by ear, trying to play them and sometimes sing along while accompanying myself on the piano. (That’s probably one of the best forms of ear training a kid could have!)

I remember being mesmerized by the whole-tone scale in thirds in the introduction, thinking it sounded very “hip,” haha.

Later on, I started playing this tune at different gigs and realized that most people play it in its original groove, the bossa — which is great, of course. But when I approached the tune for this recording, I kept thinking about what I could bring to it that would be different, new, or interesting, while still respecting all the rich elements already there.

So I went back to the way I used to approach music as a kid: I started singing the tune and accompanying myself on the piano, experimenting with different grooves until I found the one that felt right — the one I eventually kept for the recording.

Céline Gaurier-Joubert: As I mentioned earlier, I had such a rigorous classical education that I never quite managed to make the transition into playing jazz convincingly. When I listen to your version of You Are the Sunshine of My Life, I hear both tremendous freedom and enormous control. How did you personally make that transition from classical pianist to jazz pianist?

Ramona Horvath: I think it’s ironic, but the more aware you become of what you should or would like to do, the more you realize you have to control it. And control is a process that takes time to develop and become natural — but it’s something that needs to be practiced off stage.

Some classical musicians think jazz is only about freedom — meaning you simply improvise over the chords, following your “fantasy.” Others have a good understanding of jazz language — harmony, phrasing, scales, and so on — but struggle to integrate the rhythmic feeling of accents, swing, and groove into their playing.

What can I say? For me, jazz was always in my head and in my ears, and I was constantly flirting with it from childhood. I’ve always tried to catch the vibe of a music tune (latin, jazz, pop, funk …) by singing it and dancing to it first — so a very physical approach. That’s probably why people are surprised at how naturally I swing, despite my classical training. Having a naturally good technique and a good ear helped me transcribe and play many solos by iconic jazz pianists and virtuosos such as Oscar Peterson, Bud Powell, and Phineas Newborn Jr.

But the moment that truly changed my life was when I met the visionary pianist Jancy Körössy, who, like me, was of Hungarian-Romanian origin and had become an American citizen. He made me experience jazz from the inside, almost through a process of musical osmosis — by immersion, the way I had absorbed all the different kinds of music that surrounded me as a child.

It took much longer than it probably would have in a conventional jazz school program, but it was absolutely worth it. I think that, in the end, I didn’t really “transition” from classical music to jazz. Jazz gradually became part of me, in a very natural and deeply rooted way.

Céline Gaurier-Joubert: In You Are the Sunshine of My Life, there are moments where the playing feels incredibly spontaneous, yet the whole arrangement is so beautifully constructed. When you approach a piece like this, do your classical and jazz instincts still feel like two separate parts of you, or have they completely merged into one musical language?

Ramona Horvath: I love being spontaneous. I’m quite spontaneous in real life, too, and I think it’s something that can be very challenging, but also very rewarding, because it allows you to create unexpected moments and reactions. In music, and particularly in jazz, I find that very important.

Whenever I approach a new arrangement or a composition, I try to create a story. And not all stories are the same, right? My story is always a reflection of who I am at that particular moment — that day, that night, that period of my life.

So, yes, I think all my different paths have gradually merged into the person and musician I am today. I don’t really feel them as separate parts anymore. They are simply part of my musical language.

Céline Gaurier-Joubert: You grew up surrounded by an extraordinary mixture of music — classical music, jazz, Romanian and Hungarian traditions, gypsy music, Cuban boleros and American songs. When I listen to this arrangement, I wonder how much of that musical world is present within it. Were any of those influences consciously in your mind when you created it, or do they now emerge instinctively in the way you play?

Ramona Horvath: I strongly believe in the importance of our childhood environment — it becomes part of our deep subconscious. I think part of our musical taste is shaped during childhood, as is our musical ear. That’s why I believe musical education for children is so, so important.

Sometimes I connect with a tune because it reminds me of a certain atmosphere or feeling I used to hear and absorb as a child. In the courtyard where I grew up, there were musicians playing together almost every day. My mother listened to a lot of beautiful songs, my grandmother loved traditional and Gypsy music, and my cousin, who was a singer, introduced me to lots of records from the Swing Era. We would all get together and listen to Jazz Hour on the Voice of America.

At the same time, my classical lessons were teaching me how to play the piano — reading music, developing independence between the hands, sound technique, and so on — while also introducing me to fascinating composers and repertoire.

Despite the rigor of my classical training, it never dampened my lasting curiosity for other genres of music or my desire to improvise.

Today, I feel truly blessed to have grown up surrounded by such musical diversity. I think all these influences emerge instinctively in my playing, like subconscious reminiscences — little flavors and echoes of childhood that stay with us without even realizing it.

Céline Gaurier-Joubert: What fascinates me about your arrangement is that it sounds so complete, almost inevitable, as though every element could only happen where it does. Did the arrangement gradually evolve over time, or was there a point when you felt, “Yes, this is the form the piece has to take”?

Ramona Horvath: Hmm, once I found the groove, it stayed that way for quite a while. Then the intro and the ending came to me. The ending was initially the same as the intro, but I imagined a version with a drum solo over an ostinato — something we often do in live concerts.

Then, one night, while I was rehearsing the whole form in my head but playing the chords on the piano, my fingers naturally ended up quoting “Isn’t She Lovely.” I thought it was funny, and the next day, when we rehearsed it with the trio, everyone immediately wanted to play that phrase together.

Still, I felt I was missing another level of arrangement, so I started thinking about reharmonizing the bridge. That was a more complex process, because the original version already contains several modulations. But since one of my greatest pleasures in music is harmony, I started exploring different paths. My main goal was to find new chords and different angles from which to approach the melody.

Although I love venturing into reharmonizing melodic lines, I always try to preserve the natural way a melody feels when you hear it. It’s a bit like food! You can pair unusual ingredients with a dish everybody knows, and it can be very interesting — as long as everything blends naturally, almost melting in your mouth… Sorry about all these food comparisons — I probably sound like a real Frenchie! Gastronomy is such a big part of the culture here, ahahah.

Céline Gaurier-Joubert: And when you perform You Are the Sunshine of My Life now, is the arrangement essentially fixed, or does it continue to change from one performance to another depending on the musicians, the room and the moment?

Ramona Horvath: The main structure of the arrangement is pretty much the same as on the recording. Some people think our YouTube video version flows more smoothly, while others prefer the studio version, which is probably a bit punchier.

In live concerts, we can also make the intro longer, depending on the moment. And of course, the solos are always spontaneously improvised. That said, as with most jazz musicians, certain phrases from the album version sometimes come back to our fingers.

In any case, playing live gives us the freedom to adjust things to the room and the audience — the length of the solos, the intro, the coda, and sometimes even the overall pacing of the piece. So the main architecture stays the same, but there’s always room for the music to breathe and evolve in the moment.

Céline Gaurier-Joubert: You moved to Paris in 2010. Do you think an arrangement such as You Are the Sunshine of My Life could have emerged from you in the same way had you remained in Bucharest? Or do you feel that living and playing in Paris fundamentally changed your musical language?

Ramona Horvath: I think moving to Paris was one of the best things I did for my musical development. I can’t even count the number of great musicians I have met since I came here. With some of them, I have played, developed real friendships and shared many musical experiences. With others, I simply crossed paths at a jam session or a “hang.” And with many others, I’ve just had the opportunity to listen to them, or to spend a relaxed moment talking about music and life.

There are so many different levels and forms of growth throughout a person’s life. And human beings don’t develop in a constant or linear way. There is no secret formula. Some children progress incredibly quickly for ten or fifteen years, and then suddenly stop. Others may develop more slowly when they are young, but later, as adults, they develop a tremendous capacity for work and perseverance and make huge progress.

For me, living and playing in Paris has been a wonderful opportunity for growth. It has definitely shaped my musical language, through all the people I’ve met, the music I’ve heard, the experiences I’ve had, and simply by being immersed in such a vibrant, eclectic, international musical environment.

But at the same time, Paris could not have shaped me in this particular way if I hadn’t arrived here with everything I already had — my classical background, the music I grew up with, my unique experience with Jancy Körössy and all the things I had already absorbed along the way.

So I don’t think it’s really a question of Bucharest versus Paris. What I became musically is the result of everything coming together at different moments in my life. Paris gave me an extraordinary environment in which to develop, but it could only build on the foundations I already had.

Céline Gaurier-Joubert: For someone with a classical background, what is especially striking in this performance is the freedom of the improvisation. Many adult pianists can play difficult classical pieces and have considerable technique, yet feel completely lost when asked to improvise. If someone listened to your version of You Are the Sunshine of My Life and said, “I would love to be able to play with that kind of freedom, but I simply don’t know how to improvise,” where would you tell them to begin?

Ramona Horvath: I would start by listening — regularly and attentively — to a huge amount of great musicians and great jazz music.

As strange as it may sound, being free requires a certain level of comfort. You need to feel comfortable with the musical language in order to feel free within it. And you can’t really feel comfortable with something you are not familiar with.

It’s a bit like speaking a language: you cannot really speak it freely if you don’t know its grammar, vocabulary, syntax, expressions, slang, and all the little nuances that make it alive.

So I think the first step is to immerse yourself in the music — to listen a lot, to listen to different musicians, different styles, different eras, and gradually let that language become familiar to you. Once you have absorbed enough of it, you can start playing with it, experimenting, making mistakes, and eventually finding your own voice within it.

For me, freedom in improvisation doesn’t mean having no rules. It comes from knowing the language so well that, at some point, you no longer have to think about the rules.

Céline Gaurier-Joubert: When you first chose You Are the Sunshine of My Life, what did you hear in the original song that made you think it could become something completely different in your hands?

Ramona Horvath: Love. I genuinely love the tunes I choose to rearrange and record. I think “love” is this abstract but very real engine that drives us — at least this is how it works with me.

I never try to be different just for the sake of being different. I just want to do something beautiful with a beautiful song.

When you really love a tune, you naturally want to explore it, it may haunt you, it’s like a passion…. You wonder what else you can find inside it, and maybe reveal something that was already there but that you hadn’t noticed before.

But honestly, the biggest challenge for me was to be able to reach people with an instrumental version of a song they are used to hearing sung. Actually, that was one of the biggest challenges of the whole ABSINTHE album. Rearranging hits from the ’70s and ’80s is one thing, but then playing them for an audience who knows them through the original singers is another thing.

It’s quite funny sometimes in concerts: I catch people in the audience silently singing along to the refrains while we’re playing. And generally, people seem to really enjoy these instrumental versions. Maybe even more than if we had done them with a singer, because then they would probably have been comparing the vocal interpretation with the original.

I think with our instrumental arrangements, people can just reconnect with the melody in their own way.

Céline Gaurier-Joubert: Your version transforms the song so profoundly, yet somehow its warmth and identity remain intact. How do you decide how far you can take a well-known composition before you begin to lose the essence of what made it special in the first place?

Ramona Horvath: I think Stevie Wonder is a genius, so I spent a lot of time singing the tune in my head, playing it, searching, trying different things… I remember doing the same when I worked on my arrangements of some very rare Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn compositions.

It’s pretty difficult to modify a piece that already has such a strong personality. Is there a rule for how far you can go with an arrangement? I don’t think so.

Jazz musicians sometimes experiment with changing time signature, melody, the harmony, the key, and so on. But not every experiment necessarily becomes something that has the same strong personality as the original.

Once again, what really matters to me, both as a listener and as a musician, is the natural feel. Whatever you choose to do, and wherever your taste and your imagination take you, in the end I think it should sound like natural music — not like an exercise.

Céline Gaurier-Joubert: Was there one harmonic, rhythmic or structural idea that unlocked this arrangement for you?

Ramona Horvath: In the original version, the bridge was really a gold mine for me. There was so much to explore there, especially with the harmonized backing vocals, which I found very inspiring.

But since I’m a huge Stevie Wonder fan, I also felt that the interesting modulations and the funky groove were very much part of his musical language. So once I found the groove for the intro, I somehow knew where I was going with the arrangement.

Céline Gaurier-Joubert: And finally, after creating such a distinctive version of You Are the Sunshine of My Life, is there another song you love that you would like to transform in a similarly personal way, but for which you have not yet found the right idea?

Ramona Horvath: At this very moment I am working on an important project of compositions. But I do not exclude the possibility of surprising you all with a new vision of a beautiful tune that I’m in love with…. Stay tuned 🙂