Notable web postings - May 2016
Continued from Notable web postings - April 2016
Older notable web postings are collected at Notable web postings archival
♪ May 14 Wigmore Hall debut blurb to be in June issue of "Friends of Music" magazine
音楽の友 2016年6月号 5月18日(水)発売
＜Rondo＞
辻井伸行、ロンドン・ヴィグモアホールにデビュウー
http://www.ongakunotomo.co.jp/magazine/ongakunotomo/yokoku.php
♪ May 26 This is why I run this site :-) A comment that made this quiet day a happy one --
On this quiet day, this comment I received made me smile
http://mlliu2006.blogspot.com/2013/06/leave-comment-2013.html [scroll all the way to the bottom]
Like Nobu, I have been totally blind since birth. I live in Washington DC, and work at Kennedy Center as a pianist, playing class for professional ballet dancers. I am also a classically trained soprano. In 2009 a sighted coworker and I followed Nobu through the Van Cliburn competition, wondering how far he would go. Of course, we all know now how it turned out. I lost track of him after that, and it wasn't until recently when a friend saw him on cable television,that I rediscovered him. It was then, that I discovered your fabulous website, and I check it now every single day. I so relate to Nobu's life, how he learned his music, and so many things that I only wish I could share with Nobu. My piano teacher as well spent many hours making cassettes for me, so that I could learn my repertoire. I do use braille music for vocal scores, because I only have to deal with one line. Nobu is not only a wonderful ambassador for the piano, for the Van Cliburn competition, and for peace, but he is showing us that blindness does not have to stand in the way of achieving a lifelong dream. Nobu says that there are no barriers in music, and he is absolutely right! What a courageous and beautiful soul! My dream is to be able to communicate with him someday.
♪ May 25 Limited seats remain in Minnesota concert
With the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra Nobu performs Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 in Minnesota on June 25. I just took a look at the ticket sales and it seems that only limited seats remain (shown in green in screen grab below). It will be Nobu's first visit to Minnesota, a midwestern state in the U.S.A. with a well-established culture for classical music appreciation.
Above: Screen grab from Minnesota Beethoven Festival online tickets site
♪ May 27 "The start of our own moral awakening"
In my mind I hear the 2nd movement of Beethoven's "Pathetique" played by Nobu, as I read this sublime line from a speech given by our President Obama in Japan yesterday: "That is the future we can choose. A future in which Hiroshima and Nagasaki are known not as the dawn of atomic warfare but as the start of our own moral awakening."
I put together a clip of the speech from Bloomberg News, with a sound track of Nobu's 2015 performance of "Pathetique" as background music,
view-able here: => "Our own moral awakening" -- President Obama at the Hiroshima Memorial Park
Photo source: ABC News
♪ May 21 Nobu on "Yomiko" 読響 TV Broadcast
This morning in Japan there was a broadcast of recent performances by the "Yomiko" (Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra), including an encore of Beethoven's "Pathetique" played by Nobu when he performed Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 with the orchestra in February. Nobu fan Yura shares on Twitter several short clips of the performance, including this one. Nobu looks great! (This performance of "Pathetique" came after Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 and Nobu looks completely relaxed, no sweat and not a hair out of place. :-))
Please click to see the tweet and video=>https://twitter.com/icoyuraco/status/733798672513667072
Another clip that Yura posted is a preview of an upcoming broadcast, on June 25, of Nobu performing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 with conductor Sylvain Cambreling & the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra. With luck, we will see that broadcast on video.
https://twitter.com/icoyuraco/status/733805589713690626 <= click to see a video
読響×辻井伸行 ベートーヴェン「ピアノ協奏曲第1番」の放送は、6/25 午前7時 ♪BS日テレ
♪ May 20 These tweets brightened a quiet day!
It is so good to know that Nobu is heard in Nova Scotia!
Oh to be able to play like this. Losing myself in the extraordinary piano of Nobuyuki Tsujii. Liszt - La campanella [with link to YouTube video]
And this tweet is from Seattle, Washington:
Absolute beauty. Animation by Studio Ghiburi, Piano by Nobuyuki Tsujii https://youtu.be/dqDcb7Q9kSI #ジブリ #辻井伸行 #鳥獣戯画
♪ May 13
This Switzerland tourist promotional article was posted by Japan's Asahi News. Nobu is among the celebrities quoted in the ad.
http://www.asahi.com/and_M/information/SDI2016042043781.html
辻井伸行（ピアニスト）× ルツェルン
バーゼル交響楽団とのコンサートで訪れたスイス。途中立ち寄った湖畔の街ルツェルンは、僕が尊敬する作曲家でピアニストのラフマニノフゆかりの地です。 特別に許可をもらってラフマニノフが過ごした別荘に向かい、彼が使用していたピアノを弾かせてもらいました。静かな中に自然の音だけが聞こえる素敵な場所 でした。
つじい・のぶゆき 日本を代表する国際的なピアニスト。
Nobuyuki Tsujii (pianist) × Lucerne
"I Visited Switzerland in a concert tour with the Basel Symphony Orchestra.
We stopped in the lakeside town Lucerne.
It is the land of Rachmaninoff, pianist and composer whom I respect.
By special permission I was able to spend time at the villa of Mr. Rachmaninoff, and was allowed to play on the piano that he used.
It was a lovely place where only the sounds of nature was heard."
Tsujii, Nobuyuki -- International pianist representing Japan.
Nobu's 2014 visit to Switzerland was shown in a documentary aired on Japan TV in 2015. => http://mlliu2006.blogspot.com/2014/06/nobuyuki-tsujii-in-switzerland-june-28.html
♪ May 15 Mitsuko Uchida vs. Nobuyuki Tsujii
It took me a while to figure out just what this twitter was really saying:
＊似て非なるもの 内田光子＆マーラー・チェンバーオーケストラ 辻井伸行＆オルフェウス室内管弦楽団 or ヨーロッパ室内管弦楽団
*Close but not the same. Mitsuko Uchida & Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Nobuyuki Tsujii & Orpheus Chamber Orchestra or Chamber Orchestra of Europe".
I was compelled to post a reply:
"Mitsuko Uchida Japanese in name only. Nobuyuki Tsujii was born and raised in Japan. If I were Japanese, I know whom I'd be proud of."
I am sorry if this offends admirers of Uchida-san, of which I realize there are many. But it always roils me to hear sentiment such as this (Nobu is nothing compared to Uchida) from Japan.
♪ May 14 "A life dedicated to peace after witnessing the devastation at Nagasaki"
In 2014, while traveling in Japan to see Nobu perform with conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy, I visited the Hiroshima Memorial Park. The sights moved me as they do so many others. Our President, Barack Obama, has decided to pay a visit there soon. This eloquent letter from a reader (a physician) showed up in today's Los Angeles Times, with a haunting photo taken by an American soldier (the writer's father) who was in Nagasaki after the bombing. I agree with him completely.
"Go, President Obama, go to Hiroshima. I believe that deeply experiencing powerful events and our remembrance of those awful times, hopefully forever past, somehow change us. I am sure that the experience of nuclear war changed my father and drove him to pursue a life dedicated to peace, fairness, justice and love. I pray that the president and all who visit there may come away similarly chastened and changed. And I pray no human will ever again be a witness, as were my father and the people of Japan, to nuclear holocaust."
♪ May 14 Wigmore Hall debut blurb to be in June issue of "Friends of Music" magazine
音楽の友 2016年6月号 5月18日(水)発売
＜Rondo＞
辻井伸行、ロンドン・ヴィグモアホールにデビュウー
http://www.ongakunotomo.co.jp/magazine/ongakunotomo/yokoku.php
♪ May 14
Tickets for the "Nobuyuki Tsujii Music and Painting concert" (September 2, Tokyo) and for his "Self-made and classic" concert in Karuizawa Ohga Hall (September 6, Nagano) came on sale today, and by the time I checked (4PM Japan time) they both have been declared sold out on PIA
♪ May 11
This photo of Nobu that shows up on Twitter today appears to be a recent photo; the tweet does not cite the photo's source. I don't remember seeing it before.
♪ May 9
Re-broadcast of a terrific documentary that originally aired in Japan in 2013 -- I rate this show among the best of Nobu's documentaries, with a lot of the footage filmed near Paris, France, with a theme of "Music of Water." Some of the impromptus played by Nobu in this program is among the best of his compositions, in my humble opinion, and there are many endearing scenes of Nobu in and away from the concert hall.
辻井伸行 放送番組のお知らせ
5月9日（月）15:30～16:29
NHK BSプレミアム
旅のチカラ 「“水”の音楽に挑む ～辻井伸行 フランス～」 再放送
Notice of Nobuyuki Tsujii broadcast program
May 9 (Monday) 15:30 to 16:29
NHK BS Premium
"Challenge to the music of" water "- Nobuyuki Tsujii France -" The Power of the journey rebroadcast
I wrote extensively about this program => http://mlliu2006.blogspot.com/2013/08/nobuyuki-tsujii-in-power-of-journey.html
Some of the comments that came up after the rebroadcast:
続きまして…BSプレミアム「水の音楽に挑む 辻井伸行 フランス（再放送）」を観ています♪
セーヌ河の源泉に触れて即興で弾いた曲が河のせせらぎや鳥の鳴き声を表現していて、自然×天才は最強だと思いました…
We watched BS premium "Nobuyuki Tsujii in France challenge of music of water (re-broadcast)" His improvisation music after touching the source of the Seine expresses the babbling and twirping of the water, nature× genius I thought that it was the most powerful.
Comments on
音楽番組というより伸行くんの旅レポ。セーヌ川の源や昔から大事にされてきた泉や水路、湿原 #旅のチカラ こういった感覚からまた新しい曲が生まれて来る♪ #辻井伸行 シャンパーニュ湿原はアフリカの鳥の繁殖地になってるのね
The program is more than about music, it is about a Journey of Nobuyuki-kun. He was at the Seine river source and fountain and waterways that have been cherished for a long time, and composed new music from the power of the journey. The Champagne wetland I guess has become breeding ground for African birds.
♪ May 8
Author Kathie Gedden left this comment on my post "Nobuyuki Tsujii in "Empowering Journey", 2013 TV episode":
Thank you for this beautiful post and for all that you do everyday for Nobu and those of us who love him!
In my new book, THE IT BOOK TWO; A Time for Living, A Time for Dying by Kathie Gedden, in two poems in my book, UNLESS YOU BECOME AS LITTLE CHILDREN and CHOPIN, I mentioned Nobu's name and my great admiration of him.
Sincerely,
Kathie
The book mentioned is currently not yet on the web, but should be listed on Amazon in due time.
♪ May 4
In a U.K. based Japanese news digest, May 5 2016 issue there is an interview of Nobuyuki Tsujii on p.13 (as one of the 3 pianists in the Avex Wigmore Hall series.) The page can be enlarged and clearly readable. Unfortunately, I cannot use copy-an- paste to interpret the Japanese text, which can be clearly read if you enlarge the page. I have asked Japanese readers to kindly let me know if there is anything of interest there, and will share what I hear back, if any.
♪ Happy month of May! Having completed his Europe/Russia tour in April, Nobu will stay in Japan from now through June, when he comes to the U.S.A to perform with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Nobu's next public performance is in Japan on May 7 (Saturday), when he plays Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 2 with Conductor: Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Miyazaki International Music Festival Orchestra -- sold out for months.
Photo source: Tweet by Mariinsky Theatre
♪ "Touching the Sound -- the Improbable Journey of Nobuyuki Tsujii" to screen at the Gilmore film festival in the U.S.
Mr. Peter Rosen tweeted about a screening of the Nobu documentary "Touching the sound" at an Gilmore film festival in the U.S.
Wednesday, May 4 12:00 PM
Stryker Theater, Kalamazoo
(Gilmore, Michigan, is the home of the Gilmore Artist Award handed out every four years.)
