2015-05-15 Update
Kyoko Takezawa, Violin
―Thank you very much for your participation in the Mito Chamber Orchestra as a member. First of all, could you tell us how you started the violin?
I got a violin as a present for my 3rd birthday. At that time, my cousins were learning the violin, and once or twice a year they played it when our relatives gathered together, and I liked its tone. I am from Aichi Prefecture, but one summer vacation, we all went to Nagano Prefecture, where my grandparents and parents were from, and one day, we heard thunder coming from the surrounding mountains and causing a blackout. I got scared because I hated lightning, so my cousins took out their violins and started playing for me. While listening to them, I felt relaxed, and was able to enjoy the power of music, even though I was so small. That’s when I started learning the violin. The headquarters of the Suzuki Method was in Matsumoto (also Nagano Prefecture), where my cousins took lessons, and I later started attending the Tokai Branch in Nagoya (Aichi Prefecture).
―I hear that you had the opportunity to play in Europe and the United States when you were in grade school.
Yes, at that time, Suzuki Method instructors were selecting ten students nationwide every year to go on a tour of several Western countries for about a month in the fall. I participated in the tour a total of four times from the 1st to 4th grades. I couldn’t speak English, but despite the language barrier, the audience gave us standing ovations for our performances and were moved to tears. I could not forget the experience of being able to relate something through my music just by playing to the best of my ability, so I wanted to try out for the tour every year, which made me work that much harder and continue practicing. I also had a lot of fun visiting places I had never seen before. We stayed at various people’s homes while on the tour (rather than in hotels). As I came from a small town in Aichi Prefecture, traveling abroad gave me a culture shock, but at the same time, it opened a new world to me. It was a really great experience, because those were the days when Japanese did not travel abroad so frequently. We gave a concert about once every three days, and performed at various venues, including Carnegie Hall in New York and Academy Hall in Philadelphia. Many years afterwards, after I won the 2nd International Violin Competition of Indianapolis 1986 and was doing a concert tour around various cities, it thrilled me when someone told me, “I heard you once before when you came to play at my elementary school.” That really moved me.
―Those kinds of experience inspired you to become a professional musician, right?
Yes. Since I wanted to be a violinist in the future, I knew that I needed to study more thoroughly, so I started taking lessons from Professor Kenji Kobayashi, who came up to Tokyo once every two weeks from Aichi. My teacher suggested that I should try entering a student competition, as people always need to have a goal to work for. In 5th grade, I participated in the Student Music Concours of Japan and won the grand prize. Looking back on it, I think that doing such things as going on overseas tours, aiming for contests, and having steady goals have been motivating me since I was in the lower grades of elementary school.
―After that, you moved to Tokyo and graduated from the Toho Girls’ Senior High School, after which you moved to the United States. Why did you choose The Julliard School for your study abroad?
Though I had always felt a certain kinship with the United States, a big part of was having studied under Kenji Kobayashi, who had studied under Shin’ichi Suzuki (founder of the Suzuki Method) in his childhood, studied at Juilliard, and later studied with Ivan Galamian. So, I had the opportunity to learn a lot more about the school, and felt that it would suit me, too. The specific opportunity came to me when I was in 10th grade, during the winter, when Dorothy Delay, whom Mr. Kobayashi was quite familiar with, came to our school and gave a master class. At that time, I felt something special that I hadn’t ever felt with other teachers, so I decided that I wanted to study with her, if I could, in the future. When I was in 11th grade, I went to the Aspen Music Festival, where she was teaching, and spent several weeks there in the summer. There were a lot of Juilliard students studying there, and I saw that some were also performing professionally, even though they were still students. I was really excited to make music so actively, and I decided there and then that I definitely wanted to study in such an environment. Also, at that time, a lot of famous young musicians from New York, including Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman, were visiting Japan, which also inspired me to go there.
―How was your life studying abroad?
For an 18-year-old dreaming of playing at Carnegie Hall someday and wanting to eventually play with the five major orchestras in the United States, I think that the relentless, round-the-clock energy of New York was a good environment for me. Also, everyone’s skill level at the school was so high, making me always feel that I needed to compete with them. On the other hand, I have also had an independent streak, and after entering the school, I constantly worked toward my goal without losing sight of it.
I had won the Music Competition of Japan in 10th grade, and also got another award that gave me a chance to go overseas, so while studying at Juilliard, I was wondering which other contest I should try for. The International Tchaikovsky Competition was slated to take place in 1986, so I applied for it, but the Chernobyl nuclear accident occurred two months before it was to start. Not much accurate information was coming in, so I consulted various people and decided to avoid traveling to such risky places, eliminating the goal I had been aiming for. At that time, though, Ms. Delay informed me about a new international competition that was to be held (in Indianapolis) in the United States, on a comparable scale (to the Tchaikovsky Competition). Held once every four years, the competition was going to take place again for the second time in 1986. The jury contained an impressive list of names, such as Josef Gingold, the founder of the competition, along with Henryk Szeryng, Ruggiero Ricci, and Franco Gulli. I thought that it would be a good opportunity for them to hear me perform, so I seized it.
―You ended up brilliantly winning the 2nd Indianapolis International Competition.
Part of the prize was the opportunity to perform thirty to forty concerts, as well as being able to do such great things as giving a recital at the Great Hall in Carnegie Hall and getting a recording contract. I was delighted to have won, but as a student, I still had a lot of things left to learn at school, so I couldn’t make up my mind about what to do. But debuting at Carnegie Hall would be a very big thing, I thought, so I consulted with my teacher, and ended up deciding to first gain some practical real-world experience (before graduating). As I played those concerts, I gradually learned more about the pace of concerts and how to prepare for them.
―Dorothy Delay is well known for having instructed many famous violinists. What do you feel was so special about her?
She was very flexible, and I learned and absorbed many new things from her. Rather than teaching us how to play, she listened to what we students felt and what we wanted to convey, and encouraged us to create music. When I was in Japan before that, I used to be quite shy, always doing exactly what the teacher told me to do, and hadn’t reached the point of being strong enough to contradict that even if I had wanted to. But outside of Japan, unless you clearly say yes or no, you won’t be able to convey what you want to say. Ms. Delay saw through that and asked, “How do you really feel about that?” She taught me to become a true musician. Playing with an orchestra means dealing with the conductor and more than a hundred other performers, and if your music isn’t convincing enough, you won’t be able to do a good job. Ms. Delay taught me the importance of always clearly expressing what you want to express, and imparted me with various specific ways to do that. After that, I feel that I my distinct playing style gradually came to reveal itself.
―Are there any other things that you particularly remember about your classes?
Once a week, there was a master class where five or six students would get together, playing pieces and discussing them. Ms. Delay would ask us how we could improve our performances each time, and we would come up with various ideas and share them with each other. In Japan, although I had often listened to my friends’ performances, I never had the opportunity to tell them how to overcome problems that needed to be worked on. So, I felt a little discomfort in doing that kind of thing at first, but such an experience was a good opportunity for me to learn to be a better listener. I began to think how I could improve my own performances, as well as discovering how to convey my playing to other people. Ms. Delay also had many ideas about teaching methods that were tailored to each student’s individuality. Those things were so new and fresh for me.
―During your time studying abroad, you also studied under Mr.Masao Kawasaki, a viola player at the MCO, who still is a professor at the Juilliard School of Music.
Yes, the good thing about having studied with Mr. Kawasaki was getting a lot of advice on how to produce the kind of sound I had in my mind. “Grab the sounding point of the instrument,” he would often say, referring to where one should hold the violin between the bridge and the fingerboard—and with what sort of pressure, speed and vibrato—so as to create the kind of sound that would emanate in the most natural fashion over a long distance. Thanks to his advice, I could easily sort out in my mind what I had only sensed viscerally before then. He taught me those things for a year or so since my arrival at Juilliard, allowing me to expand my range of musical expression. Mr. Kawasaki helped me with a broad range of matters, such as how to enter the Aspen Music Festival, as well as a variety of things related to my experience at Juilliard itself—not just school affairs but also general things pertaining to everyday living. Studying abroad can be tough, but he helped me a lot mentally, often inviting me to parties at his home.
―Could you tell us about your most impressive concerts, starting with the 2nd Indianapolis International Competition down to the present?
There have been so many, but one of the highlights of my musical career would have to be the recital I gave at Carnegie Hall three years after getting the Indianapolis award. Also, while I was studying in the States, I often attended concerts by the New York Philharmonic, and even had the opportunity to perform with them for the first time, playing solo in a performance of Bartok’s Violin Concerto No. 2 under the direction of Zubin Mehta. That piece has given me various opportunities through my life: I played it at the Indianapolis competition, and later at important concerts at various venues where I gave debut performances. I also frequently listened to the piece on a CD released by the New York Philharmonic, with Isaac Stern as soloist, so having played it myself with the same orchestra made me very happy, providing me with great momentum to move forward.
―In 2009, you moved from New York to Paris.
I had gotten married and had a family, so I wanted to live in a more relaxed city. Manhattan gave me a lot of good stimuli—nonstop, 24 hours a day—when I was young, but mine was not a calm life there. The atmosphere of Europe and its style of doing music were also both attractive to me. My husband had lived in Vienna a long time before that, and he desired to live in Europe again. We moved to Paris because France felt like the “most quintessentially European country.” Actually, when I was younger, I didn’t use to feel very much connection with France. French music always distressed me somehow, and of all the countries in Europe, France felt the furthest away. That’s precisely, however, why I dared to go to there, thinking I might feel something new.
Once I actually started living there, though, I no longer felt so weak and resistant to French music, and since the French really love art, I am now glad to be living there. The pace of life is completely different from that of New York. I moved to France at the end of June 2009, but the city was emptied out then, as it was the start of the summer vacation season. Many people in France thoroughly enjoy their way of life, enjoying their vacations to their hearts’ content but then switching back to their regular, serious work life starting in September. Some people really do live like this, I thought (laughter).
―For you, then, it was an encounter with new values.
Of course, my core essence has always remained the same, but when I was playing in the States, I was always aware that I had to be more aggressive than that. Many performance venues in that country are giant halls with relatively little reverberation, so I felt that I had to create my music more aggressively there to convey my expressions to the audience. Once I moved to Europe, on the other hand, I began to think that I could create compelling music from a different angle. There were more opportunities for me to perform chamber music at European music festivals, at which I got a better idea of how they create music. I have thus been lucky to have been able to live in both the United States and Europe, giving me fresh experiences and expanding my horizons.
―Your daughter also plays the violin, right?
She’s trying, but still has a long way to go (laughter). She is working on it steadily, anyway. We get about two weeks’ vacation in France about five times a year, so I sometimes take her on a trip if our schedules match.
―What do you keep in mind as you pursue your career at the pinnacle of the world of music?
I think that good music doesn’t only come from playing as hard as you can, but is also affected by the communication among co-performers, the ambience and acoustics of the hall, and the feeling of oneness with the audience. It also depends on how deeply the performer understands the composer and makes compelling music, as we are sending messages to our audience. I always conduct my performance activities thinking about how I can resonate with my audience, hoping to make three-dimensional music, rather than just playing accurately or beautifully.
―Now that you are with the MCO, what sort of ambitions do you have?
I have performed with many orchestras as a soloist so far, as well as in recitals and small ensembles, so playing in a chamber orchestra has been a new experience for me. In our most recent concert, we performed Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 at Mito, but before that, I had never experienced making and breathing one of his symphonies as an orchestra member, having just played his sonatas, concertos, and various pieces of chamber music. It was thus a good learning opportunity for me, helping me to understand various aspects of the composer, and I look forward to similarly learning about various other composers at each of our concerts in the future. I am also honored and glad to be able to create music with such wonderful members. I think that those experiences will surely contribute positively to my creation of music from now on.
―Could you tell us about your dreams for the future?
Recently, playing chamber music has been a useful learning experience for me, and there are many moments when I feel lucky to have chosen music as my field. So, I think it would be fun to do such things as staging a chamber music festival together with some of the other artists whom I have met so far. And since I haven’t had much experience playing in quartets, I would like to take the opportunity to do that more often as well. I also want to gradually increase the number of opportunities I have to convey my experiences to the younger generation.
May 2015
Interviewer: Maki Takasu
