Blind musician Tsujii bewildered by all the fuss

• Bangulzai

  14 Jun 09, 21:05

  

  Nobuyuki Tsujii

  Blind musician Tsujii bewildered by all the fuss

  Sunday 14th June, 05:08 AM JST

  TOKYO —

  Nobuyuki Tsujii, a blind Japanese pianist who shared the first prize at the 13th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas, returned home recently and said he was relieved to be back.

  The 20-year-old Tsujii, who said he rarely cries but tears welled up in his eyes at the award ceremony, then went home for the first time in quite a while.

  But he said he was a little bewildered by all the fuss surrounding him. In response to reporters’ questions, Tsujii said, ‘‘Although I am blind, I am satisfied as I can see with mental eyes,’’ adding his next objective is to become a ‘‘pianist of high caliber.’’
  
  ‘‘I would like people to listen to my performance just as a pianist,’’ he added.
  
  Tsujii was born blind; his father Takashi is an obstetrician and gynecologist, and his mother Itsuko is a former announcer.
  
  He was late both in beginning to walk and speak. But while the Tokyo-born Tsujii was still crawling at age 2 years and 3 months, he started playing a toy piano.
  
  He grew up as a boy who did not feel at ease without a piano near him.
  
  While traveling overseas, Tsujii heard a piano at a shopping center and approached it, hoping to play it. A sales clerk let him try it, and when he performed, he received thunderous ovation from shoppers, finding out how enjoyable it was to play a piano in front of others.
  
  When he is not playing piano, he is a karaoke-loving university junior. He likes ‘‘enka’’ and pop singers Kiyoshi Hikawa and Yosui Inoue, and goes to karaoke places with his friends.
  
  After he received the award June 7 to become the first Japanese to win the Van Cliburn prize, there has been a rush of orders for his recordings such as ‘‘Debut,’’ and concert tickets have been sold out.
  
  Yukio Yokoyama, his piano teacher since junior high school, said, ‘‘I want people to watch how he, having started his musical career with the prize, will mature from now on.’’