Aimi during an all day interview with Chopin Magazine in February 2010. (Photo © CHOPIN)

Yamaguchi TV Station KRY program broadcast 7 January 2010

A 17-minute program aired by Station KRY in Aimi’s home prefecture, Yamaguchi. This interesting feature has several previously unseen sequences from Aimi’s younger (!) years. For an illustrated transcript go to this page.

Concert in POZNAN, Poland, 21 February

Concert on 21 February 2010 with the Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Marek Pijarowski.

• Photo set by Adam Ciereszko of Aimi playing at Poznan.

• Clip on YouTube showing Aimi playing an encore at Poznan.

• Audio clip on the Poznan Philharmonic site of Aimi playing the second movement of the Chopin concerto.

• Aimi received an excellent review by a Polish blogger who writes about classical music. We now have a translation here.

Unfortunately Radio Merkury Poznan (www.radiomerkury.pl/index.php?art=39735), which I used to have linked here, has removed its photo set.

Interview in Chopin Magazine, February 2010

An all-day “interview” in which Aimi was followed during a day at school in Tokyo. Now moved to its own page on this site: Chopin Magazine interview.

Event at MATSUO HALL, TOKYO, 1 March

A musically illustrated talk with Russian pianist Stanislav Bunin and music journalist Yoshiko Ikuma.

• See this page on Yomiuri Online for an interview (in Japanese) with Aimi in connection with this event and a nice set of new photos taken at Matsuo Hall. A correspondent has kindly provided an english translation here.

• This page in CDJournal (a Japanese online magazine) has two nice photos of each pianist at the keyboard.

• Also this page re the Suntory Hall concert on 15th May.

Interview in BRAVO online magazine, March 2010

Aimi talked about recording for her CD:

“It was recorded in New York last June [she means June 2008]. It was so hard that I played each piece many times. I had an especially hard time with the [Chopin] Scherzo no. 1. While recording it, I felt like dumping my performance many times. However, I was able to get over the difficulty thanks to Mrs Ninomiya’s encouragement from the monitor room. So I think this album is a joint work by the teacher and me.”

Then she talks about her forthcoming concert at Asahi Hall Hamarikyu in Tokyo on April 3rd.

“I will play Mozart’s Sonata no. 18 [Sonata in D major KV 576], Beethoven’s Pathétique, Chopin’s Ballade and etc. I like to listen to Mozart’s lovely music. But his music is hard to deal with. I am weak in it (laughs). Beethoven’s sonatas are passionate and kakkoii [literally well formed or well shaped]. So I like them very much. For me, it is enjoyment to play Pathétique and Waldstein every time. Some day I want to play Appassionata! I think Chopin suits me most.

“Next year I have to take the high school entrance exam. Therefore, so as not to overwork, my concert schedule will be planned in consultation with Mrs. Ninomiya.”

This brief interview was accompanied by a link to Aimi’s short promotional video about her CD. To watch, go to this Bravo magazine page and click on the movie link at the top. This is what she’s saying:

<< Hello readers of Bravo. I am Aimi Kobayashi. I released a CD called “Aimi Kobayashi Debut” on February 10th. I am glad if all of you listen to it because I did my very best. And I am commemorating my CD debut in Hamarikyu Asahi hall on April 3 by giving a recital. By all means please come to hear the live performance. I look forward to being able to meet all of you. >>

[My thanks to mimiporu, a Japanese correspondent, for the CHOPIN and BRAVO translations]

NHK TV feature broadcast in Tokyo metropolitan area on 27 March 2010, and later nationally

A10-min featurette based around a small recital in Machida, an event I don’t know about. Our friend in Japan has kindly provided a transcript and when I have some spare time I’ll either put it up in full or summarise the most interesting parts. It’s less interesting than the Yamaguchi TV program listed at the top of the page.

Aimi shows her collection of pop videos to a plainly astonished interviewer. Aimi fished especially carefully in the basket behind her for her favourite video by boy band Tohoshinki!

Mini-review of recital at Asahi Hall Hamarikyu, Tokyo, on 3 April 2010

This item, which appeared on the BARKS website, has now been moved to a dedicated review page for this recital. Find it and a concertgoer’s review here.

Autograph session at Tower Records store, Tokyo, 18 April 2010

Here's a link to a feature in BARKS Global Music Explorer, which includes four new photos taken at the event. The text is in Japanese. Clicking on the page 2 link at the bottom takes you to a page where just the photos are displayed, with the fourth only shown on that page. As you will see, the store had a piano and Aimi obligingly played three of her standard pieces: Scherzo no. 2, Etude Op. 10 no. 4, and Nocturne no. 20. (Note that this was a different event from the "mini-concert" listed for 17th April on the 2010 Schedule page.)

Recital/concert at Suntory Hall, Tokyo, 15 May 2010

Concertgoer’s comments and a musician’s review here (this website) This was Aimi’s first public performance of Chopin Piano Concerto no. 1.

Interview on Livedoor, 29 May 2010

Aimi gives some fairly thoughtful answers to questions on her feelings about Chopin. For a translation go to this page on my site.

TV Tokyo, “100 Japanese Who Change the World”, 16 July 2010

In this 8-min feature, which was broadcast only in the Tokyo area, the program-makers decided they should have a chat with Eric Dingman, who was (and in 2011 still is) the President of EMI Classics and is based in London. My understanding is that it was Dingman who was largely responsible for Aimi’s contract with EMI. Here is how this part of the program went:

Presenter: “EMI classics, which is proud of having been established 100 years ago and has had contracts with Karajan and Maria Callas, paid attention to Aimi. We asked the president, Eric Dingman, about her.”

Dingman: (translated from Japanese subtitles) “Even if we looked all over the world for the last few years, we wouldn’t be able to find such a wonderful pianist as Aimi. So we gave her a contract. I consider that it is our mission to make her a worldwide star.” (Gasps of pleasure from people in TV studio)

Presenter: “Aimi came to the attention of people outside Japan before she was noticed here.”

These video grabs show the Japanese subtitling for Dingman’s responses (click for large version).

Significantly (as one assumes that this was told to the TV Tokyo program-makers by someone close to Aimi), Jacques Collet’s LCI TV program about the AADGT concert at Carnegie Hall (Zankel Hall) in June 2005 is credited with having brought Aimi to international attention. This was broadcast widely in Europe (see Notes for 2005 in the Video Catalogue).

Recital at Minato Mirai Hall, Yokohama, 28 August 2010

We have no fewer than four bloggers’ reactions to this recital on this page. Now includes FailedViolinist’s very positive reaction to the Appassionata newly added to Aimi’s repertoire, a reaction that confirms dopeydoc’s reproduced in the next entry.

Recital at Kitakyushu, Japan, 17 October 2010

On 17 October dopeydoc (based in Japan) wrote a comment on Patrick Tabet’s YouTube channel to say:

“Dear Patrick, We listened to Aimi Kobayashi’s piano recital in Hibiki Hall (Kitakyusyu International Music Festival 2010) of Kitakyusyu-city today. Especially Beethoven ‘Appassionata’ was very wonderful. Aimi is a great pianist. And we bought CD and also received a signature.”

Patrick asked about Aimi's performance of Chopin’s Ballade no. 1 (which in fact wasn’t on the menu at that recital), and received the further information that Aimi had a cold that day. Despite this “she played about 2 hours wonderfully” and her “Chopin performance was very beautiful”.

Joint concert at Hyogo Performing Arts Center, Nishinomiya, Japan, 23 October 2010

Bloggers’ reviews are coming in for this concert, where Aimi played the Chopin no. 2 piano concerto. Go here.

NHK TV broadcast, Tokyo, 31 October 2010

Here are some video grabs from a not too good recording we have of Aimi playing the first movement of Chopin’s piano concerto no. 1 with the Tokyo Junior Orchestra Society conducted by Toshiaki Umeda.

This very junior orchestra, which looked as though its average age was well below Aimi’s (now just 15), played astonishingly well under conductor Umeda. The sound they produced was — to my ears! — indistiguishable from a professional orchestra’s. Lovely smooth violins (above right), completely in tune!

Aimi’s own performance was very creditable — confident and fluent. Here she is rocking gently as the orchestra plays out the first movement.

Aimi the “C sharp of God” by Italian blogger Marino Mariani, 5 November 2010

A sympathetic and considered reflection on Aimi’s performances of the Schubert Impromptu Op. 90 no. 2 (age 7), Waldstein (in New York, age 12), and Chopin Nocturne no. 20 (May 2010, age 14). The C sharp of this resonant title refers to the key of the Nocturne. For the Impromptu Marino (aged 81 and proud of it) makes favourable comparisons with Lipatti (rating Aimi higher) and for Waldstein with Gieseking. Of the Nocturne he says “Aimi plays it with such intensity, with such rapture [rapimento], as to create a real frisson [turbamento, lit. disturbance] in the auditorium.”

Marino perhaps sums up his reaction to Aimi’s playing in these observations: “[Her] interpretations are impressive for their ‘awareness’ [consapevolezza]. It’s not so much the virtuosity that arouses admiration as the ‘rigour’, the perfect relation [attinenza] to the text, the lack of frills and embellishments. In a word, the ‘maturity’. That maturity which a good musician builds for him or herself during a lifetime career and which Aimi Kobayashi has had since birth as a heavenly gift.”

There’s lots more. Non-Italian speakers will need a translator, which as usual does a barely adequate job. Here's a link to the blog. Oh yes, and note our nice pic of Aimi concentrating hard at her Nagoya recital at the top! This is one of the few places where it is reproduced in its full width, allowing one to sense what it must be like to be part of an audience watching this remarkable performer.

8 December 2010

There is now a follow-up in which Marino Mariani cosiders Aimi’s performance of the Waldstein sonata at Nagoya in 2009 in light of a recording made by Walter Gieseking in 1938. Here is the link: Aimi Kobayashi and the shadow of Walter Gieseking. See next page (2011) for a third instalment.

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Page created 20 March 2010. Last modified 1 August 2011.

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