If you haven’t heard Rafael Karpowitz ’27 play the piano, you’re missing out. Rafi forms a connection with his audience that’s uniquely his — and theirs. It’s no surprise that he was a child prodigy. “I began in third grade. I think my parents were very adamant that I play an instrument of some sort,” Rafi noted.
For the Karpowitzes, music is a family affair: “My dad was actually so committed to having me grow up with music that he relearned the piano when I was one or two years old and would play it in our house. He had relearned Brahm to have music in the house. My parents definitely wanted me to play an instrument. I started with the violin as a five year old, but I couldn’t focus on it.”
It’s hard to imagine any kindergartener playing the violin without immediately feeling frustrated. Needless to say, Rafi soon swapped stringed instruments. By the time he reached elementary school, Rafi opted for keys instead. He found it immediately more beginner-friendly than the violin: “You can play a song in your first week of learning. It doesn’t sound great, but you hear it.”
Once he started to improve, Rafi attended the Bard College Conservatory of Music Preparatory Division from second through eighth grade. “I played classical music exclusively until I changed to jazz in eighth or ninth grade,” he remembered. “I started to distance myself from classical music because it wasn’t as enjoyable as I wanted.”
”Truthfully, the classical music scene can be rigid. Often, it emphasizes precision and conformity: black pants, white shirts, and measured accuracy. Each piece has a supreme interpretation, and most of the time, your teachers instruct you to stick to the page. Even in the most supportive environments, it can feel stifling.”
“Classical became so stressful that I wasn’t able to enjoy how I played it or enjoy how my audience was engaging with the piece. If you’re able to enjoy the performance, then you’re also giving the audience something that they can enjoy too. That’s when you make the best music because you’re so absorbed in it, for yourself and for others. It attunes you to the precision of how to make the performance sound really good.”
Jazz, in contrast, is fluid. Improvisation allows you to experiment with new compositions and learn through trial and error until you improve. Each interpretation feels fresh because you can never fully replicate the experience. Rafi lets the music speak for itself and for its audience, “When I feel like I’m at my best in a jazz concert, I’m able to take a step back from the specifics of what I’m playing. I focus on making my performance fun for the audience. That’s when I feel like I do sound better, because I create music for the audience, to some extent, and for myself, but through the audience.”
For Rafi, playing jazz is freeing, partially because his first experience was wonderfully chaotic. “Over my eighth-grade summer, I joined my mom in Kathmandu, Nepal, while she was doing work in a conservatory there. I hadn’t really played much jazz, so I figured I might as well check it out. [My mom’s coworkers] taught me the very basics of jazz voicings, harmony, and the standard ‘Autumn Leaves.’ They had a show somewhere nearby, a couple weeks after I’d been learning. They brought me and asked me to sit in on ‘Autumn Leaves.’”
Rafi continued, “I was so confused. I’d always practiced for months to perfect my song, and then have an official concert. Now they were throwing me into a jazz world where that’s not the way that things work at all. They told me to play and see what happens and to not be stressed out because no one cares. It was all about having a good time.”
Simply put, Rafi wanted to have more fun with fewer rules. Jazz felt more relaxed, which allowed Rafi to immerse himself in both his performance and the audience. “I transitioned from classical music to jazz. Playing informal jazz gigs or busking around Philly feels low pressure in a certain way. Those settings let me play the kind of music I want to play. In high school, I was definitely doing a lot of competitive, high-pressure, classical music concerts and performances.”
It’s not that jazz completely removed the nerves that come along with performance. Rather, it allows a level of versatility that Rafi uses to connect with his audience. He added, “There’s a balance between being so relaxed that you’re not as intensely focused as you should be and feeling so stressed out that you can’t take a step back to enjoy the moment. You want to sound really good and play very well, and that requires focus. You also need to connect with the other people you’re playing with. You don’t want to be so overwhelmed by stress that it stifles your ability to do so.”
Moreover, you don’t want to be so overwhelmed by stress that it stifles your ability to be creative. At Swarthmore, Rafi has participated in several outlets for musical experimentation. He and a group of friends in the class of 2027 formed G7, a Swarthmore jazz ensemble. With his quintet back home, Rafi’s been exploring the intersection of jazz, hip-hop, and various other subgenres, including on their recently released album, “Roof Access.” “We blend straight-ahead jazz with hip-hop influences and even modern jazz. I’ve been listening to a lot of Thelonious Monk, and I wanted to write something similar to his songs. That’s what I said to myself, and it just felt right.”
Admittedly, it’s hard to leave an album alone, especially when music is a living document. Accepting that his album will shift over time, Rafi strikes the right balance between control and play.
“Jazz is about changing the product every time you make it. Sometimes you change a song months after you finish it. Sometimes you leave it alone. Sometimes you bring it to your teacher or your friends and they add to the song in a way you wouldn’t have imagined. With standards, no two people are going to play them the same, even though they’re technically the same song.”
Improvisation is all about call and response. It is a constant, unmitigated battle that, when performed correctly, sounds effortless. That tension makes the experience continuously enriching. “By playing jazz, you’re constantly [pushing] the bounds of what you can play and experimenting with classic standards. You don’t want to feel bored. Sometimes feeling bored is good, because you have to learn how to not be bored. It’s important to always keep pushing — and not necessarily consciously. It’s something that you subconsciously end up wanting.”
If you haven’t heard Rafael Karpowitz ’27 play the piano, you’re missing out. Luckily, according to Rafi, you’ll have an opportunity to listen soon. “Piano is such an important part of my life. I only want to play more music. I’m not going to stop.”
