from the commento for "1996" by Ryuichi Sakamoto
....I've given several concerts as piano trio with almost always the same member consisted of Everton Nelson (violin) and Jaques Morelenbaum (cello) in this 4 years. Everton is in his 20s, and Jaques is the same generation as me.

It was not the same situation when I met each of them. But the same thing among us is that we three are used to practicing classical music hard and at the same time we have been listening to almost all kinds of music such as Rock, dance, soul, reggae, Brazilian.

And with the influences of such music and our groundworks of classical music we all are trying to create an unique music in common. So, this piano trio never exist without knowing each other. Now we come to think this piano trio is the minimam form but very effective one.

....There are very few player who can perfectly perform almost all kinds of music, such as classical, balck, modern, jazz, pops, and avant-garde music. In this meaning I owe much to them their ability to do so. Especially Jaques is a rare musician in the world to play the cello improvisationally, and Everton has splendid sense of rhythm which is unusual for classical musician.

This year, we're going on a tour started in NY, then Europe, and Asia. I'm looking forward to going many nations such as Greece, Portugal, Australia, Singapore, Taiwan, and so on and I feel so comfortable with playing music in strange countries as an etranger.