辻井伸行 - 平和大使 Nobuyuki Tsujii - Peace Ambassador

Last week (August 6), Japan marked the 66th anniversary of the atomic bombing. (http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Japan-s-Hiroshima-city-marks-atomic-bombing-1750958.php)

In the United States, the day passed quietly.  But I remember an article that I could not forget since I first read it.  It was written days after Nobu gave a performance of Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 in New York last fall.  The article was written by an American clergy woman who was in the audience  at the concert:

There is peace in the valley — in the Hudson Valley. I felt it recently at the Bardavon 1869 Opera House as I listened to the young Japanese pianist, Nobuyuki Tsujii, play Chopin at this season's opening Hudson Valley Philharmonic concert.

The brilliance of his talent and the beauty of the Chopin piano concerto brought many of us to tears. The 21-year-old Gold Medalist of this year's Van Cliburn International Piano Competition sat right before my eyes in Poughkeepsie; he was from across the world; he was playing my favorite music, born in a country where American bombs — atomic bombs — fell just over 60 years ago. He brought peace. It was a privilege to be there to feel world peace in his presence and in the music...."

Nobu will turn 23 years old on the 13th of September.  Since I started this website on the eve of his last birthday, that day will mark the first anniversary of this site.  Although I started this website with American Nobu fans in mind,  I have been pleasantly surprised by how international the visitors to this site are.  If statistics from google is to be believed, the majority of my readers are from Nobu's own country Japan, with  the United States a distant second.  But apparently there are Nobu fans all over the world, in  Canada, Asia (China, Taiwan, Korea, Thailand, India), Australia, New Zealand, Cuba, the Bermuda,  many parts of Europe; and some parts of Africa, the Middle East, and South America. 

I have been asked how I came to be so passionate about a pianist .  And I have no answer.  It is really improbable that I, an American citizen of Chinese descent who was never too big of a fan of classical music, have become such an ardent admirer of a Japanese pianist that I knew nothing about until that fateful night last September, when I first watched the Cliburn Competition documentary on television ("How I Caught the "Nobu Fever").

Perhaps no one is more astonished by the depth of my admiration for Nobu than myself.  You must realize that, traditionally, there is no love lost between the Chinese and the Japanese, because of what happened in the last world war.

Yet  from the first  moment that I became aware of the phenomenon of Nobu, his nationality has never been  a factor.   So moving is his music and so compelling  his story that, to me and  apparently many others,  he transcends borderlines that divide countries and people. 

I am grateful to what one reader wrote: " please let me say that I really cannot admire you enough for willingly devoting yourself to such a huge-scale volunteer dedication to help spreading Nobu’s MIRACLES into every corner of this whole world."   But I wouldn't be doing this (virtually a full-time job :-)  if I were not so moved by Nobu.   There is no substitute for the  satisfaction that I derive from sharing news with and hearing from other Nobu fans.

It has been  mentioned by many that Nobu has a healing power.   I agree.  I believe there is something truly special in the combination of Nobu's  youthful exuberance, his likable personality, his hopefulness, his purity and innocence, the beauty of his music,  his extraordinary talents, and the inspiration that he engenders. 

Nobu has the power of evoking good will.  And right now, this world is in desperate need of good will. We live in a  difficult time:   earthquakes and other natural disasters have devastated many nations in recent years, and  financial troubles have continued to haunt the western world --  including the U.S.   There is a palpable nervousness in the earth's atmosphere.

A blogger wrote, at the conclusion of the 2009 Van Cliburn Competition, that "we now have an ambassador"  (for classical piano music) in Nobuyuki Tsujii, and that he (the blogger) could see Nobu performing at embassies and palaces all over the world as an emissary of peace. 

Last May, after Nobu performed a "mini-concert" at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo for friends and earthquake victims, a long time Nobu fan in Japan wrote: "I am just so moved that Nobu is really being a bridge between the United States and Japan." Next month, Nobu will hold joint friendship concerts with South Korean young pianist Yeol Yum Son (Nobuyuki Tsujii - Yeol Yum Son joint concerts, Sept. 2011) to raise fund for Japan's earthquake reconstruction efforts.  Nobu's compositions seem to be popular  in Asia.  And his videos are seen all over the world, inspiring admiration from all corners. 

Emissary of Peace - I like the sound of that title for Nobuyuki.  I second the nomination.  Let us make him an Ambassador of Peace and send him all over the world to perform, so that more people may experience the privilege " to feel world peace in his presence and in the music".