MONTHLY NEWS
November 1997

Blind 9-Year-Old Pianist Makes International Debut

A 9-year-old boy who is completely blind in both eyes made his international debut as a pianist in a concert hall in Moscow in September.

Nobuyuki Tsujii, a third grader at a school for the blind in Tokyo, played Tchaikovsky's "Troika" by himself and Gounod's "Ave Maria" with a Taiwanese violinist and won a big round of applause from the audience.

The concert was organized by a Russian pianist who toured around the world and selected nine young, gifted musicians with disabilities. Nobuyuki Tsujii was among the nine from six countries. They demonstrated their musical skills in front of an international audience at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall at the Moscow P. I. Tchaikovsky State Conservatory.

Nobuyuki was born blind, but his parents soon realized that he had an especially keen musical ear. At the age of one, for instance, he was already playing "Jingle Bells" on his toy piano after hearing his mother Itsuko sing the tune.

He started practicing the piano seriously when he was just four years old. Today, he is taking lessons twice a week from Masahiro Kawakami, a professor at the Tokyo College of Music. Because he can't read piano scores, Nobuyuki masters new pieces by listening to recordings of his teacher's performances.

Nobuyuki said he was surprised by the enthusiastic reaction he received in Moscow. "I want to become a pianist who can really touch an audience's heart," he said.

Photo: Nobuyuki practicing the piano with Professor Kawakami. (Asahi Shogakusei Shimbun)