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On Sunday, June 19, the Friends of Music of Stamford are presenting a concert artfully and carefully crafted by Tatsuya Nagashima to honor the celebration of Father’s Day. The Frank W. Cyr Center, located on West Main Street in the village of Stamford, will host this celebratory concert by a world-renowned pianist at 3 p.m.

                                           Tatsuya Nagashima b

Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Tatsuya Nagashima burst into the international limelight in 1993 as the first prizewinner of Italy's Ibla Grand Prize International Piano Competition. As the only internationally acclaimed Japanese pianist of his generation, Mr. Nagashima enjoys a remarkable career on both sides of the Atlantic. By the age of 24, he had already performed in every major European city, generating packed halls of faithful fans with his exceptional repertoire in solo, orchestral and chamber music concerts. Mr. Nagashima's musical maturity, superb technique and mastery of the subtlest sonorities make him one of the most radiant personalities in his field.

Tatsuya showed extraordinary talent and promise at an early age.   Born into a musical family --his father is the renown Taiwanese pianist, Pan-An Chen, and his mother is a celebrated soprano, Min-Zu Wong--he began playing the piano at the age of four. Shortly thereafter, his family moved to Tokyo, where he studied at the Musashino Academia Musicae. At age of nine, Tatsuya gave his first public recital at Yamaha Hall of Taipei.  By the youthful age of thirteen, he captured the first prize in the Japan National Piano Competition, competing against competitors twice his age. Upon his graduation from the high school at age seventeen , he left his family to study music in the United States and has since resided in this country.

A stream of recognition, including numerous awards and firsts at national and international competitions mark his acceleration onto the international stage. He has won over 20 first prizes in competitions, including the Los Angeles Chopin Competition and the Japan Piano Competition, as well as the Ibla International Piano Competition.

In 1992, at the beginning of his international career, he toured as a duo partner of the legendary pianist Tatyana Nikolayeva, whose artistry influenced the young pianist tremendously.

Tatsuya Nagashima has appeared as a recitalist at major festivals and venues around the world, from Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, to Royal Albert Hall and Barbican Centre in London, Schauspielhaus and Deutsche Rundfunk Saal in Berlin, St. Petersburg's Philharmonic Society Hall and the Bolshoi Hall of the Moscow Conservatory in Russia, Musikverein in Vienna, Suntory Hall and Sumida Triphony Hall in Tokyo, as well as the National Concert Hall of Taiwan. As a guest soloist with orchestras, Nagashima has performed with the world’s leading orchestras including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (London), Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, American Symphony Orchestra, Kiev Symphony Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra, Russian State Symphony Orchestra, Russian Federal Orchestra, and St. Petersburg Festival Orchestra, among many others.  The conductors with whom he worked include Valery Gergiev, Daniel Gatti, Vaktang Jordania, and Ian Hobson.

In April 2001, Mr. Nagashima stunned the music community by making a remarkable overnight success, with no rehearsals, when filling in at the last minute with the Grand Forks Symphony Orchestra (Timm Rolek, conductor).  "The Strad" magazine wrote an article on this stunning event: …"the most bizarre moment of the season was provided by piano soloist Marie-Luise Hinrichs.  She arrived from Germany to play Mozart's Concerto No. 22 [with the Grand Forks Symphony Orchestra].... a day before the concert, the conductor happened to catch her on her way out of the door.  She was leaving for the airport.  Had he not run into her, she would simply have disappeared!  In [a] remarkable stroke of luck, pianist Tatsuya Nagashima was available. He had only two issues.  First was that he was performing all of Brahms’s violin sonatas the night before and couldn’t make any of the rehearsals.  Second was that he had never played the piece before! He arrived to play the first concert and knocked our socks off. Not only was he gracious and humble, but he played the piece beautifully." (P721; The Strad, July 2001)

Earlier this season, he has concluded the monumental project of performing a cycle of complete Mozart Sonatas at London MusicFest.   Of his first Mozart recital of the series, Annette Thomas of the London Daily Press wrote: "His clean articulation and rhythmic precision, and the ability of performing with such poetic grandeur and emotional depth without ever losing stylistic elegance proved that he is one of the finest Mozart pianists of today."

After studying at the Juilliard School, Tatsuya earned Bachelor and Master of Music Degrees from the North Carolina School of the Arts, and spent the next four years studying at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  His distinguished teachers include Ian Hobson, Gyorgy Sandor, Eric Larsen, and his father Pan-An Chen.  In 1999, he received an Honorary Doctor of Music from the Kharkov Institute of Music in Ukraine.

His long list of awards include the Vittorio Giannini Award, National Society of Arts and Letters Award in the United States, Outstanding Artist Award from the government of Taiwan, Japan Performers Association Award and Chiba Prefecture Cultural Award in Japan , and an honorary award from the Art Festival for Children’s Health in Moscow. In August 2003, he received the Mayor’s Award from City of Vienna, Austria for his continuing charity concerts and out-reach programs for young audiences.

Mr. Nagashima's compact disk recordings are available on the Angelok1, Orion Classics, and Fontec labels. For Angelok1, he recently recorded Liszt's Piano Concerto No.1 with London's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Beethoven Piano Concerto No.5 and Copland's Piano Concerto with the Russian Federal Orchestra, Mozart's Piano Concertos with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, and together with the Tchaikovsky International Competition Winner, cellist Kirill Rodin, and the winner of the Schubert International Violin Competition, Alexandre Trojansky, they recorded Beethoven's Triple Concerto.

His performances have been broadcast on radio and TV in Japan, Taiwan, Italy, Russia, Ukraine, Germany, France, England, Belgium, Canada, and frequently on the National Public Radio as well as PBS, ABC, NBC in the United States.

Dr. Nagashima has taught at the North Carolina School of the Arts and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.   He has been invited to present master classes and lectures all over the world including such prestigious institutions as the Moscow Conservatory, Royal College of Music (London), McGill University (Montreal), University of Wisconsin at Madison, and Temple University, as well as Meadowmount School in New York.  He has served on the jury for national and international competitions, including Ibla Grand Prize International Piano Competition in Italy, European Piano Competition in Switzerland, Bartok-Kabalevsky International Competition in the United States and Japan National Piano Competition in Tokyo In 2002 he was invited to serve on the jury for the European Consumer Association's piano test in Belgium. The international panel of distinguished pianists included Maria Joao Pires, Alexandre Toradze, Leslie Howard, and Artur Pizzaro.

Suggested donations for this concert are $10 for adults, $5 for seniors and students, and children under 13 are free.  Refreshments and a chance to visit with the artists follow the concert.

This concert is made possible in part by a generous grant from the Robinson-Broadhurst Foundation.