Nobuyuki Tsujii Nobuyuki Tsujii

Nobuyuki Tsujii(辻井 伸行)| Tsujii Nobuyuki | Nobu Tsujii (born September 13, 1988) is a Japanese pianist and composer.

Early life and education

Nobuyuki Tsujii was born blind due to microphthalmia and with a great talent for music.

He exhibited an exceptional prowess for music at an early age. At the age of two, he began to play "Do Re Mi" on a toy piano after hearing his mother hum the tune. He began his formal piano study at the age of four. In 1995, at age seven, Tsujii won the first prize at the All Japan Music of Blind Students by the Tokyo Helen Keller Association. In 1998, at age ten, he debuted with the Century Orchestra, Osaka.

He gave his first piano recital in the small hall of Tokyo's Suntory Hallat age 12.Subsequently, he made his overseas debut with performances in the United States, France, and Russia. In October 2005, he reached the semifinal and received the Critics’ Award at the 15th International Frédéric Chopin Piano Competition held in Warsaw, Poland.

In April 2007, Tsujii entered Ueno Gakuen University, graduating in March 2011.

Career

Tsujii competed in the 2009 Van Cliburn International Piano Competitionand tied for the gold medal with Haochen Zhang. He was also awarded the Beverley Taylor Smith Award for the best performance of a new work. He played all twelve of Frédéric Chopin's Op. 10 Étudesas part of his performance in the preliminaries.

He was one of the competitors prominently featured in the Peter Rosen documentary film about the 2009 Van Cliburn competition, A Surprise in Texas, which was first broadcast on PBSTV in 2010.

In addition to being a pianist, Tsujii is a composer. At age 12, he performed his own composition "Street Corner of Vienna".He has since released numerous albums of his own compositions. He is also a film music composer, and the 2011 recipient of the Japan Film Critics Awardfor Film Music Artist.

On November 10, 2011, Tsujii made a debut recital in the main hall (Isaac Stern Auditorium) at Carnegie Hallin New York, as part of the Keyboard Virtuosos II series.Tsujii debuted at the BBC Promson July 16, 2013 with a performance with the BBC Philharmonicconducted by Juanjo Mena.

Tsujii is featured in a 2013 English textbook for high schools in Japan.

A 2014 film Touching the Sound, also by Peter Rosen, documents Tsujii's life from birth to his 2011 Carnegie Hall debut, including footage of his visit to the region in Japan that suffered the devastating aftermath of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.

Tsujii can be seen on numerous YouTube videos. "Pianist in tears!!!. Most moving piano performance" (published 2015) has had well over 19 million views. Another video, "Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto no.2 op.18 Nobuyuki Tsujii blind pianist BBC proms" (published 2013), has had over 7 million views.

Critical reception

Van Cliburnis quoted as having told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, "He was absolutely miraculous. His performance had the power of a healing service. It was truly divine."

2009 Van Cliburn Competition Juror Richard Dyer, a chief music critic for The Boston Globe, said, "Very seldom do I close my notebook and just give myself over to it, and he made that necessary. I didn't want to be interrupted in what I was hearing."

2009 Van Cliburn Competition Juror Michel Béroff, an award winning internationally known pianist, told the Japanese monthly piano magazine Chopin,"The special thing about his performance is his sound. It has depth, color and contrast, the genuine music."

In the documentary "A Surprise in Texas", Menahem Pressler, Cliburn juror and an eminent pianist, says: "I have the utmost admiration for (Nobuyuji Tsujii). God has taken his eyes, but given him the physical endowment and mental endowment to encompass the greatest works of piano. For him to play the Chopin concerto with such sweetness, gentleness and sincerity -- it's deeply touching. I had to keep from crying when I left the room."

Scott Cantrell in his review of the 2009 Van Cliburn competition for The Dallas Morning Newswrote that "It's almost beyond imagining that he has learned scores as formidable as Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto and Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata by ear…Through all three rounds, he played with unfailing assurance, and his unforced, utterly natural Chopin E-Minor Piano Concerto was an oasis of loveliness."

John Giordano, music director and conductor of Corpus Christi Symphony Orchestra who was jury chairman for the Cliburn competition, said in 2010, "He’s amazing. We closed our eyes and it’s so phenomenal that it’s hard to withhold your tears. Nobu played the most difficult hour-long Beethoven piece (Hammerklavier, Sonata no. 29) flawlessly. For anyone, it’s extraordinary. But for someone blind who learns by ear, it’s mind-boggling."

In an interview after the November 2011 Carnegie Halldebut recital of Tsujii, Van Cliburnsaid on TV Asahi, "What a thrill to hear this brilliant, very gifted, fabulous pianist. You feel God's presence in the room when he played. His soul is so pure. His music is so wonderful, and it goes to infinity to the highest heaven."

In a 2014 review that appeared in The Daily TelegraphUK, reviewer David Fanning wrote, "...Nobuyuki Tsujii’s performance of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3. This was not just supersonic in its tempos but remarkably clean, and also responsive to the fairy-tale poetry that sets off the steely aggression."

On Tsujii's debut performance with the Munich Philharmonicon November 4, 2015, the Münchner Merkurwrote (translated from German): "At first he seems a little uncertain, but as soon as he sits down at the piano, he is like a different person. The supposed handicap turns out to be his strength: The Japanese sinks into Beethoven's fifth piano concerto. The high chords of the second movement seem to float with his feather-light touch."

Upon the conclusion of a tour in Japan with Tsujii in November 2015, conductor Valery Gergievsaid: "He is not only a great musician and star in Japan, he shows that the human resources are virtually limitless. He shows that there is practically nothing that a human being cannot do."

Conductor Bramwell Tovey, who performed with Tsujii and the Sydney Symphony Orchestraat the Sydney Opera Housein May 2017, made this comment: "There are lots of pianists who find Chopin baffling. But he's found a way that almost simplifies it, without simplifying any of the technical difficulties, and I mean he makes light of the technical difficulties. He has just found a way to express all of those different emotions on the journey until in the end there's just this incredible feeling of for me, sunlight. I just love playing with him."

In 2017, on the tenth anniversary of Tsujii's career début, pianist/conductor Vladimir Ashkenazycommented: "Nobuyuki Tsujii is one of my very favourite young pianists. He possesses a rare combination of excellent pianism and genuinely expressive musicianship. It is always a great pleasure to work with him and I wish him a future of many wonderful concerts." And Japanese composer Takayuki Hattori wrote: (Translated from Japanese) "The music of Nobuyuki Tsujii is guileless. There is no excessive decoration. He plays the piano with a minimum amount of flourish as required by God. He is one of a few in existence qualified to play the works dedicated to the God of Music by composers. He inspires courage to live and engenders food for thought. It is a pleasure to be alive in the same era as this rare pianist." 

Japanese composer Joe Hisaishi, who teamed with Tsujii for the ending theme music of a 2018 film 羊と鋼の森("The Forest of Sheep and Steel"), commented: (translated from Japanese) "Mr. Tsujii is a really wonderful pianist, especially the sense of rhythm is amazing. A neat rhythm without useless things." 

Method

Tsujii learns new musical works strictly by ear.

A 2009 Timearticle explains: "Certainly, being blind hasn't made it easy. Tsujii can use Braille music scores to learn new pieces, but this kind of translation is usually done by volunteers. Because demand is so low, the variety of scores available does not meet the needs of a professional performer, so Tsujii has devised his own method. A team of pianists records scores along with specific codes and instructions written by composers, which Tsujii listens to and practices until he learns and perfects each piece.".

Tsujii said in a 2011 interview, "I learn pieces by listening, but it doesn't mean I'm copying CDs or another person's interpretation. I ask my assistants to make a special cassette tape for me. They split the piece into small sections, such as several bars, and record it (one hand at a time). I call these tapes 'music sheets for ears.' It takes me a few days to complete a short piece, but it takes one month to complete a big sonata or concerto."

Performance technique

In 2017, Australian Broadcasting Corporationreporter Monique Schafter posed this question to Tsujii: "How do you stay in time when you can't see the conductor?" The pianist replied: " By listening to the conductor's breath and also sensing what's happening around me." Conductor Bramwell Toveycommented: "He must have very acute hearing, I'm sure."