Crawling home after 18 hours of travel from Tokyo via London, I am now recovering from an inevitable bout of jetlag. It has taken me awhile to write this entry, as I have been mulling over a great many things. The waning rays of summer, the feeling that things are “starting up” again…immersed in this annual transition, and nourished by my experiences and insights from these past few months, I debated how to best approach and write this post.

I have recently been struggling with a difficult experience I had with someone, a fellow musician -  someone I admired and respected very much. What happened between us has left me saddened, disappointed, and very much hurt -  feelings which are very typical when one realizes (and painfully admits) that one has been manipulated and used. I have always felt that it is extremely important for artists to support other artists whom they believe in. Everyone is eager to declare that classical music is dying and is in a severe crisis. But musicians, who are often struggling so much just to be heard, just to survive, sometimes end up behaving in a manner that I think negates the very value of the art we are trying to sustain. Egotism, insecurity, the driving need to somehow be accepted or validated, a quest for recognition — all these things are related and can negatively affect a performer’s ability to sincerely communicate and give through their music. When someone much older than me behaves in a manner that seems more appropriate for someone much younger than me, it is rather disturbing. It makes me wonder why an artist would behave in such a way, and if this is the way that it is, if musicians themselves end up acting without integrity, without courage or class, then what is the point of doing music at all? And so, the disillusionment set in - then why am I a musician? What good does it do? How can I step out onto a stage and share my ideas, share what I find and love in this incredible music, when I am so personally disappointed with the manner in which people I cared about and valued, behaved? It was with this rather heavy heart that I headed off to Japan to start off the season.

This was my fourth trip to Okierabu to perform and teach - a small, beautiful island located near Okinawa off the southern most tip of Japan, it is where my grandparents lived and where my mother was raised. This small island is rich in its people’s generosity and its own historic culture, and has a tradition of being fiercely devoted to children, education, and the future generation. There is a huge banner hanging in front of the main government building there - it says “Yume ni kakeyou”, translated it means “Let’s bet on our dreams”. I am consistently amazed with the city’s ability to be adventurous, to take risks, and their absolute commitment to the future of their children, to produce (as the mayor informed me) “global citizens”. I am always humbled when I hear them talk about their plans and ideas, and feel that this small island has so much that it could teach to much larger countries.

Upon arrival, the happy conversations of the people there, the warmth of their greetings, the fantastic seafood, the beautiful surroundings — somehow they all soothingly enveloped my disenchanted self, and when I finally sat down to play, finding all of the words I have a difficult time expressing in real life contained within the notes, harmonies, and phrases of Beethoven, Mozart, Schumann, the audience listened so quietly, so attentively, to what I wanted to express. They experienced it all with me - my recent pain and disappointment, my search for some kind of understanding, my desire to get past it. They experienced it not so that they could understand me better, but rather, they experienced my perceptions in order to bring about a better understanding of their own selves, of their own pains, disappointments, and personal searches. And as I played the quiet opening of the second movement of Schumann’s G minor sonata, as the piece unfurled itself from Schumann’s exquisitely magical writing, I remembered why I do music, and why I am a musician. Every artist’s path is his or her own - the artist I am and the life I lead is a choice I make each and every day. It is a choice I make because I believe in the value of what I do, and I lead my life in a way that I hope sincerely and truthfully reflects that. Every musician makes his or her own choice, not only artistically with their interpretations, but also, like every human being, every musician makes choices in how to lead his personal life, and in how he chooses to treat others around him.

After the recital, I did some intensive teaching through masterclasses and private lessons with many bright and talented students at the Grace Nikae Piano Seminar, which I’ve been doing for several years now. These beautiful students, with their sparkling eyes filled with such joy at just playing at the piano, move me every single time. There is a moment in teaching that I love more than any other - it is when a student’s face (his expression, a shift in the light of his eyes) changes because he has just realized something, discovered something new, not only about the music or instrument, but also about himself, that he didn’t know before - I can find no words to describe my feelings when I see this look. Everything else fades, everything else seems small and irrelevant, next to the power of this expression.

Bleary-eyed and exhausted as I am, I come back from Japan with a different heart than when I left for it. The fact that I am able to experience all of these things - the sadness, the joy, the challenges, the necessary growing pains involved whenever we step forward into the next chapter of our development - makes me grateful. Because it is proof that I am alive, that I am a breathing, living individual who is simply a part of something much greater than all of us. I have been reminded of the reasons why I became a musician, why I believe so much in what it is that I do. And on this day, five years after the unthinkable happened, I remember and am even more poignantly grateful for this.



Click on the picture above to see all the photos from my trip.