Born into a musical family, koto player Karin Nakagawa's destiny seemed to be mapped out for her from birth — still, she put up a fight.
At 3 years old, her flautist father, Masami, and her composer mother, Izumi, started young Karin on the piano.
"I just did not like the piano as a child," Nakagawa recalls. By the age of 12, she says she was "fully prepared to die if necessary" to quit her piano lessons. If the musical desire wasn't there, at least a flair for the dramatic was.