A dozen years ago, pianist Shoko Sugitani owned nine pianos, which she kept in different places. She is now down to seven, some of them in Duesseldorf and the rest in Tokyo. She has a favorite piano that she takes with her to important concerts. For the concert scheduled with the Warsaw Philharmonic National Orchestra this month, she has borrowed a made-in-Hamburg Steinway full concert grand piano. It's the tuning of the instrument that is critical, she explains. She has high, demanding standards, saying, "It is very difficult to find someone who can tune the way I want it." She relies on Masayuki Matsunaga of Yamaguchi Prefecture to tune the Steinway grand she is borrowing from him, to tune her own Steinway, and all the pianos she uses for her recitals and recordings in Japan.
For her, the piano is the only instrument that has the capacity for effective solo performance. Other instruments, she says, need support to achieve the harmony and melody that a well-played piano can produce on its own. She has not wavered in her devotion to the piano since she began music lessons when she was 6.
After Sugitani graduated from the National University for Art and Music, she went for graduate study to West Germany. "I promised to return after one year. I extended that time. In fact I have never returned to live only here again. I live in both Duesseldorf and in Tokyo, and on concert tours make the round trip three or four times a year," she said.