I'm not sure why, but there are a few questions that really irritate me.
One of them is "Do you meditate?". Interestingly, so many people ask me this question!!
I feel like it's become a requirement for being a balanced healthy person. After Steve Jobs and the Hollywood stars made it a popular thing, it seems like it's a must to be creative. For those who do it, good for you! But please don't suggest to me that I need it.
I'm in a lucky position where I love my work and I have a fairly healthy body, and I don't live in a dangerous environment. Practicing Bach, Rachmaninoff, and just working on the piano is meditative. Having a really nice cup of tea or eating a really nice meal is meditative. Walking through nature, or just appreciating the trees and flowers in a residential area or watching children being totally carefree is meditative. Just seeing the moon when I get out of the station quite late after work and following it on my walk back home in quietness is meditative. We have all these beautiful and wonderful things around us which are inpsiring in our everyday lives. Just taking time to appreciate them, to live in the moment, and to be in awe of them, is to me much more meaningful than sitting with my eyes closed and trying to be still to "find myself".
I'd rather be working on my Rachmaninoff. I feel balanced, energized, inspired and happy after a good practice.

I had the priveledge of going to Ivo Pogorelich's recital yesterday at Suntory Hall in Tokyo and oh what a priveledge it was.
Wow - just - Wow....
It is impossible to describe what it was like but I came home loving music more and my hope for humanity renewed. It was an experience - not just a concert.
The over 3000 capacity hall was not totally full but I could tell that everyone there was really there to hear "Pogorelich" and not just a pianist.
I have never heard such a quiet sound from the piano in that hall and everyone was so intensely listening, trying not to miss a single sound.
It was as if he was inviting us into the deepest part of his soul. The sound, the music was unworldly. And it wasn't just serene but also at times passionate and full of inner energy.
Never an unintentional tone nor phrase and played with total honesty and dignity.

Apparently his recent performances are very controversial and I totally get that. I'm sure there would have been plenty of people that might have thought his playing was boring and too introvert. But in truth, it's never self indulgent nor does he exclude the audience.
There's no flashiness to his playing, no exagerated gestures. Nothing of which even the classical world has become accustomed to is there. He invites you into his world which is full of compassion and beauty in the stillness of his soul.

What a pianist!!

Wishing the world a peaceful 2024.
May we be able to find a way to live together in harmony.

I cannot believe that I haven't been able to write a single post this year!
I guess there's been too much going on that I didn't have much time to reflect.
My "word" for this year was "GO-GO" (go means "5" in Japanese and I turned 55 this year so I thought it would be a good word to get myself out of COVID mode and just go to wherever it was I wanted to go without fear.). I have to say, I did travel a lot - even more than I had planned or imagined! It did turn out to be a "GO-GO" year.
I'm thinking next year's word should be "HOME" or something along those lines!

Anyway, I do want to get back to my good habits and be strong about my priorities.
I will try to be better with my blog so if anyone's still reading it, please check in from time to time.

This is me trying to get started for 2024!

Wishing everyone a happy and peaceful year.
The world seems to be heading in the opposite direction so this year it seems even more relevant to wish for world peace. May you all be safe and warm.

I'm a real scrapbook person and I collect articles from magazines, newspapers, and any kind of printed matter. The clippings that I save are anything from essays, interviews, places I want to visit, food, art, films, music, literature, photography - basically things that I'm inspired by or which make me happy. The problem is I accumulate quite a lot and then just put them in a pile... At last I had time today to go through all the clippings that I had saved in the past few years and started filing them.

I was putting them into a file which was of photographs that were inspiring or beautiful and came across a newspaper photo/article which I didn't even remember saving. It nearly brought me to tears.

The headline "The Victory over Germany - 60th Anniversary Celebrations".

Japan was on Germany's side so I'm sure there were mixed feelings but in this photo we see the leaders of Germany, America, France, Japan and Russia - Putin himself. According to the article, this was held in Moscow, hosted by Russia and Putin made a speech saying "Today we celebrate the victory of peace and justice".

I was thinking of why I kept this photo. I love the expression on everyone's faces and how close they are standing next to each other. I think it gave me joy even back then (I'm guessing over 15 years ago?) to think that the leaders of our world are getting along and that those who are in charge and have the power to keep our world's peace are actually "happy" to be together.

What happened, President Putin????

This photo represents the world that I want to live in. It wasn't even a dream. It was a reality. What will it take for us to be able to all live together in harmony again?

Wishing everyone a happy and healthy New Year!!

Covid does not seem to want to go away yet so I'm hoping that we'll continue to find ways to protect ourselves and to find ways to still enjoy life.

2021 was a really tough year for Japan as we had to deal with the Olympics. I'm just glad that it's over and that our focus is now simply trying to carry on with our lives alongside the pandemic.

I'm hoping to start performing again and to travel - things that we used to take for granted.

May 2022 be a good year for all of us!

So here we are in the midst of the "2020" Tokyo Olympics...

I've just had a birthday and so many friends have been sending me their birthday wishes. If it weren't for the pandemic I'd be traveling to Europe or America for the summer so I really miss celebrating with friends in person but still, all the messages have really made me very happy. Along with the birthday wishes though, everyone has also asked how I was feeling about the Olympics. It seemed that everyone watching from abroad was enjoying them but was also concerned how we, who live in Japan, were taking it all in. So, I thought it would be interesting to write what has been going on through the minds of many Japanese. Or at least, what my experience of it has been.
(WARNING - this is a very lengthy blog. I must have had lots of thoughts on the subject!)

March 11th. It's now 10 years since the massive earthquake and tsunami had hit Japan.
Because of covid, memorials have had to be limited and I decided to stay at home and watch a livestream ceremony held at our local shrine in Kamakura.

I was hoping to go to Kamaishi, one of the places which was hard hit, which I had gone to several times for volunteer work for the 10th anniversary but decided it was not a good idea as we're still in the midst of this pandemic here in Japan.

Every TV channel was showing programmes related to the earthquake and tsunami and I happened to watch one whilst eating breakfast. It was about a young couple who had lost their 3 children. They talked how they almost separated as the pain was too great, how the wife would cry and yell at her husband everyday, blaming him for not being able to save them. After a year she started to withdraw within herself and would never leave the house. She said it was too painful to even look at the photo (which was found in the rubble) of her children as it reminded her of happy times which would never come back again. The husband is a builder/carpenter and everyday he would go to work and take it day by day. He started to do volunteer work, visiting schools and worked with children. He wondered whether it was better for both of them to separate but he decided not to as he thought that their children would be sad if they did. 3 years pass and one day the wife is able to see for the first time how her husband is busily filling his days with work, crying and working at the same time, and how she was doing nothing. She gradually is able to live her life again and in the end of the programme showed how she was a part of the community, laughing with friends, laughing with her husband.
If I had met her in the street I would have not known what pain they had gone through.
And this is just one single story. So many people lost someone in that tsunami and if they hadn't they have had to live with the guilt of not losing anyone.

It's a been a very sad day.
10 years. We really mustn't forget how 3/11 had impacted so many lives.

So, practice on the Goldberg Variations goes on.

One of the reasons that it seems never-ending is that there are so many ways to interpret each variation. There are almost no markings in the score that Bach wrote which means that tempo, dynamics, style are all up to the performer. It truly tests the player's imagination which is part of the fun but also often leaves a dilemma.

I have 4 CDs of the Goldberg Variations - one being the historic 1955 recording by Glenn Gould which I love - and they all are tremendously inspirational. I am in awe of all of them but it's interesting how I still have to search for how "I" want to play them. I have stolen some styles from some of them but there are some variations that none of them seem to be right for me. The trouble is it's not easy to find the way which I want to play. So, the search continues!

One of the things that has come out of learning this piece in depth is that I can truly appreciate the greatness of it. I recently had a chance to hear a friend perform it in concert and could really enjoy every single variation in detail - note to note. It was a very interesting experience to hear the piece so differently and also confirm how "I" interpret it.

Although it seems like a never-ending process I feel very privileged to be able to work on such an amazing piece.

I read this quote just yesterday which seemed very fitting for how I feel about working on these variations.Giacometti puts it in words beautifully.

“Everything gains in grandeur every day, becomes more and more unknown, more and more beautiful. The closer I come, the grander it is, the more remote it is.” Alberto Giacometti