English Blog
Happy New Year! I am preparing to play a very fun recital on Sunday January 25th at 7pm at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in North Hollywood (6020 Radford Avenue, North Hollywood, CA 91606 phone 818 761 6124). The first half is from my ongoing project related to Clara Schumann, and in the second half I will play […]
I always like the paintings of Turner, and it was so interesting to see this movie to learn about the famous painter! First of all the film is so beautiful as if the whole movie is like Turner’s paintings. Also the music is great too. I was so happy to see the individual names of […]
This movie is about the music conservatory life which I went through myself. I attended Tokyo’s Performing Arts High School and Toho Conservatory in Japan, then master’s and doctor’s degree in the US for piano performance. At the last year of Toho Conservatory, 2 of my piano friends committed suicide because they could not handle […]
The concert started with Stockhausen’s “Gesang der Junglinge” (1956), and I felt as if thousands kids speaking to me from everywhere. I don’t know how many speakers they were using, but surely I felt the voices coming from every place in Disney Concert Hall. It is a good piece to start an European avant-garde concert. The conductor was Mattias […]
I have not gone to the movie theater for a while, and this movie was so perfect to come back to the theater! “The Imitation Game” is a British-American historical (based on the real true story!) thriller portraying Alan Turing, a British mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, computer pioneer, and a long distant world class runner. He […]
Clara Schumann (née Clara Josephine Wieck) is considered one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era. She exerted her influence over a 61-year concert career, changing the format and repertoire of the piano recital and the tastes of the listening public. Her reputation brought her into contact with the leading musicians of the day, […]
We lost our beloved friend, Francetta LaRussa, this past weekend. She had a heart attack and a stroke. I just saw her a week ago, and she looked as happy and beautifully as always. She and Wayne took a wonderful trip to Alaska in September, and their photos from Alaska are still so vivid. She […]
We started a new concert series “Third at First” at FUMC Pasadena, California. As you see from the naming, each concert will be presented every month on the Third Saturday at 4pm at First United Methodist Church in Pasadena. We had a first concert performed by an exceptional organist, Ty Woodward on October 18. His […]
This is the last movie Philip Seymour Hoffman was involved before he died with the drug overdose. As always his acting is amazing, but the story is too difficult to believe. It is a great thriller. And I simply could not miss his last movie!
A movie “Philomena” is based on the book “The Lost Child of Philomena Lee” by journalist Martin Sixsmith, starring Judi Dench and Steve Coogan. It tells the true story of Philomena (Dench), 50-year-long search for her forcefully adopted son, and Sixsmith’s (Coogan) effort to help her finding him. The movie follows the sad story/history of adoptions. […]