Blogs and forums

Blogs in Japan

• • I started a blog as a spillover of this site.

  • Masahiro Kawakami's blog

  • http://www.masahiro-kawakami.com/blog/

  • Mr. Kawakami was Nobu's teacher for 12 years, and has a deep bond with Nobu.(see It takes a village)

  • On the entry in August 2nd, 2010  he talked about a TV show he and Nobu were on. There is a picture from that show. (It was such a moving show!)  And there is an entry on June 10 2010 where he wrote that the show was a big success, receiving many comments and the highest rating ever of the program, and sympathize with Nobu about the embarassing childhood photos shown  "http://www.masahiro-kawakami.com/blog/index.php?d=20100610&PHPSESSID=hvgg43prl9llc9uspjcb4a69n2 

  • http://blog.yoshikoikuma.jp/ blog 伊熊よし子のブログof  Ikuma Yoshiko isa Japanese classical music writer who wrote some of the concert program notes and CD liner notes for Nobu

  • Colors of the wind - by "Reina", a blog devoted to reviews by the blogger of Nobu's concerts and CDs

  • Chopin Magazine blog http://ameblo.jp/chopin-magazine/

  • http://www.yutakasado.com/ Yutaka Sado English site

  • Conductor Yutaka Sado's Official fan site: http://yutaka-sado.meetsfan.jp/

  • Conductor Yutaka Sado's TV show Daimei blog: http://blog.tvasobi.jp/entries/view/daimei/11407  .

  • Conductor Yutaka Sado's facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/%E4%BD%90%E6%B8%A1%E8%A3%95-Yutaka-Sado/327995447971

  • webpage for Asahi TV's "Daimei" show, featuring Yutaka Sado, on which Nobu appears from time to time:

  • http://www.tv-asahi.co.jp/daimei/

  • http://www.tv-asahi.co.jp/daimei/contents/NextProgram/cur/

  • A Nobu fan site in Japanese:  http://ameblo.jp/tsunamiwa/

  • http://tuijinobuyuki.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-20.html  Tsujii Nobuyuki blog, in Japanese

  • http://2jii.seesaa.net/article/240765180.html A blog page that has Nobu info

  • A Sado fan site in Japanese that mentions Nobu and this site (domo aregato!) http://blog.goo.ne.jp/kyara_musica/e/14085a16c39015297d29caf1ce77555a

  • A blog from Japan on entertainment news that mentioned Nobu often in its 2009 entries http://entertainment.japan-power.net/blog/2009/07/

  • A Japanese blog that's not complimentary about Nobu's Cliburn win - see the entries in May and June of 2009: 

  • http://shoshino.blog.so-net.ne.jp/archive/200906-1

  • excite blog

  • http://search.exblog.jp/?t=1&q=%E8%BE%BB%E4%BA%95%E4%BC%B8%E8%A1%8C&_ie=utf8

  • The Shin Blog: http://shinmm.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2011/07/post-a73c.html  Not a blog dedicated to Nobu, but the blogger (a Mr.) does admire Nobu- see  July 5, 2011 entry (in Japanese), and the July 10 entry (English translation).  For keepsake, I have captured the text of these entries on this page: Three Irreplaceable Performances Another excellent entry was posted on 8/17/2011, the English translation of a piece previously posted in Japanese, of this insightful blogger's thoughts on Nobu's career as a composer and a pianist.http://shinmm.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2011/08/46-2-nobuyuki-t.html Also see http://shinmm.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2012/01/op1-038d.html about Nobu's Carnegie Hall debut. And http://shinmm.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2012/12/2012-8bbd.html - an impression of a recital that the blogger attended in 2012, with ongoing comments.

  • "Days of Music and Roses" http://tamtom.blog44.fc2.com/ - an exceptionally well done blog, as you can see on this page about the "Emperor" concerto performance of Nobu in 2010.

• A beautiful blog whose owner apparently is a Nobu fan.  The August 23, 2011 entry talks about "the darkness of mind" vis-a-vis Nobu's blindness, and the hopefulness conveyed in Nobu's music (the "Still we live" composition) http://pub.ne.jp/MX2141688/?entry_id=3850676

  • A beautiful blog by a male photographer in Tokyo - the May 6, 2013 posting about Nobu's YourTube video "花は咲く Flowers bloom" (with a school choir) strikes a chord.

  • A Japanese blog http://port.rittor-music.co.jp/dynamic/search.html?offset=1&limit=20&class=entry&exclude_blogs=8&query=%E8%BE%BB%E4%BA%95%E4%BC%B8%E8%A1%8C&x=0&y=0  Rittor Music Port: has Japanese articles on Nobu

  • This site has a collection of articles from 2009/2010, including a nice write-up about  Nobu's June 15, 2010 performance of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Slovakia Philharmonic Orchestra: http://zenback.itmedia.co.jp/keywords/%E8%BE%BB%E4%BA%95%E4%BC%B8%E8 %A1%8C/ 

  • Linked from the previous page is a photo album (high quality) from 2009, with Nobu, in Japan, basking in the glory of the Cliburn victory: http://www.barks.jp/feature/?id=1000050026&p=10 The photos include some from a news conference (at which Nobu looked wonderful) and a joint concert with Nobu's university professor Yukio Tokoyama.

  • http://pub.ne.jp/MX2141688/?entry_id=3817408 This blog is not about Nobu specifically, although this page is about the episode on the "Takashi Artbeat" show on which Nobu appeared.  But the animation at the top of the blog is worth seeing - it's a beautiful wintry scenery; very Japanese.

  • http://pianorasu.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-397.html  The blog of Japanese pianist or pianist lover, with many entries about Nobu.

  • http://www.blechaczinfo.com/Preludia -Information website for Polish pianist Rafal Blechacz  This website has nothing to do with Nobu, but it is a website created by a lady in Tokyo whose passion for theMr. Blechacz mirrored mine for our beloved Nobu!

• "Piano Street" performance forum

Notable blog posts:

- July 2011 A Japanese blog that discusses Nobu's music, and cites three performances (with audio) considered by this blogger to be

outstanding even by the standard of Horowitz and Richter http://shinmm.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/ (See entries on July 15, 2011 and July 22, 2011)

-July 2011 A tribute to Nobu, in Japanese http://furniturekitsethome.com/archives/1320

- Jan 2, 2012  A blog post that reads like a poem, with a picture of snow in the mountains, and an unforgettable line about Nobu's Carnegie Hall performance as shown on a TV special on New Year Day.   http://blog.goo.ne.jp/ukiuki333/e/f2744d7f3be122036d9643921eccc430?fm=rss

Also https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=281845568531467&id=117502771637418

- June 2010 blog that summarizes in details an NHK TV special "Gene of the Heart" 『心の遺伝子』 about Nobu and long-time piano teacher Mr. Masahiro Kawakami  http://kobemorien.at.webry.info/201006/article_9.html  English translation  http://bit.ly/ID6iLB

- http://blog.goo.ne.jp/caravan1341/e/96c18388f12edecb9913c6d6ac7dada1 A July 16, 2012 blog post by someone who was in St. Petersburg and attended Nobu's White nights Festival performance.

- Classical Music Blogspot July 24, 2012 "Nobuyuki Tsujii – simply a great pianist", in English  http://www.classicalmusicblogspot.com/nobuyuki-tsujii-simply-a-great-pianist/

Blogs and Forums from the Cliburn Competition

Since I missed the Cliburn event when it took place in 2009, I looked all over the web for comments about the event.  I wanted to read what people had to say about Tsujii's win, knowing that it must have been controversial.  It was not easy, but here are some links to pages that, as of fall 2010, still exist.

• • The Van Cliburn competition had a blog during the event.  In March 2011, the blog can still be read here: http://www.cliburn.org/blog/?cat=10 and there is a page here that has a couple of nice photos of Nobu: http://www.cliburn.org/blog/?p=1610

  • http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1213631/1.html

    • this is a "mega thread", on a forum called "Piano World", about the Cliburn Competiton.  It gives a good idea of how those who follow the event on the Internet reacted to the performers and the performances.

  • http://find.publicradio.org/search?site=pft&client=pft&output=xml_no_dtd&proxystylesheet=pft&filter=p&access=p&q=nobuyuki+tsujii&x=15&y=8&ie=UTF-8&ip=71.84.111.117&entqr=3&entsp=0&oe=UTF-8&ud=1&sort=date%3AD%3AS%3Ad1 "Great Performance Today" (formerly an NPR show) items about Nobu

  • Ron Spiegelman's Cliburn Blog  Spiegelman is the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra’s Principal Pop Conductor

  • http://www.dfw.com/cliburn/ This is the text of a blog that appeared on a Dallas-Fortworth site;  several people contributed to the blog, including brief reviews of the performances, but primarily written  by one Chris Shull

  • http://artsblog.guidelive.com/archives/van-cliburn/  This is a blog by writer Scott Cantrell of the Dallas Morning News - who, in spite of being often quoted in Nobuyuki's publicity literature, is not a big fan of Nobu.

  • http://www.wrr101.com/?id=289&authorid=3 is a blog by one Matt Erickson for WRR, a classical music radio station in Texas.   The write seemed to underestimate Nobuyuki from the start and favored the other gold medalist but did have high praise for Nobuyuki's performance of Chopin's Concerto #1.

  • http://www.publicradio.org/columns/performancetoday/fredlines/archive/2009/06/ written by Gregory Allen, Professor of Piano, University of Texas at Austin, exclusively for Performance Today's Fredlines.  Also:http://www.publicradio.org/columns/performancetoday/fredlines/archive/

  • http://fwweekly-vancliburn.blogspot.com/ Fort Worth Weekly at the Van Cliburn Competition -- by a person named Kristianwho insultingly wrote that the jury "chose the blind guy."  This person has no credibility did not recognize the brilliance of Noboyuki's recital in the preliminary round nor his Chopin Concerto in the final round.  At least (s)he warmed up to Nobuyuki in the end, a little, and seems to favor Nobuyuki over the other medalist.  But still, NO CREDIBILITY whatsoever - this person was wrong in just about every prediction/choice that (s)he made.

  • Ciburn blog of UK based International Piano magazine

  • http://artsblog.dallasnews.com/archives/van-cliburn/  The blog of Dallas News on the competition.

  • http://northwestreverb.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html You will have to use the search engine to search for "Tsujii" to find the Cliburn entries - but this blogger favored Nobu from the start.