Hi! I produced this recording and project, and it's so nice to see it on the front page of Hacker News this morning.
Let's talk about Kimiko Ishizaka, the pianist. She always insists on standing in the background, letting her projects be about Bach, and public domain, while she quietly delivers the most stunning performances of these works that one can imagine.
Kimiko is German-Japanese. She grew up performing in a trio with her brothers who are also both notable classical musicians in Germany. In addition to the Goldberg Variations, she has recorded the Well-Tempered Clavier I (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPHIZw7HZq4), and The Art of the Fugue (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIrNDWqANCs) and released them into the public domain as well.
Then, in 2019, she did something completely new and released an album of her own, jazz-inspired compositions for solo piano called New Me! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph35hLwcckY&list=PLeWVBqJrTS...). She continues studying Jazz and is composing a cycle of songs (pop-jazz), and a series of ragtime pieces for piano.
Kimiko is very athletic, and has placed in the top-3 at the German nationals in both powelifting and olympic weightlifting. She has a room in her house which functions both as a piano practice room, and a gym. It is painted pink and decorated with Hello Kitty, because, well, she's a half-Japanese girl who loves Hello Kitty =)
Thank you for this project and for putting the spotlight on this pianist. I listened to 'the new me' and it is very interesting how she did that and yet somehow there is a bit of Bach shining through here and there.
Yes. Her life story is really heartbreaking, wanting to become a classical pianist but being told that being black and playing classical music at the same time just wouldn't do. I'm of two minds on this - as I've written before on HN -, sad as it is that she did not follow her chosen path in the end it gave us her own material which to me is just as dear of not dearer. My all time favorite song is 'wild is the wind'.
Indeed! Especially in Blues Variations, which is - like the Golderg Variations - a theme-and-variation form. But like the WTC and AoF, it ends in a 4 voice fugue. All on a blues theme =)
Amazing music. Been listening to it on repeat for a while now... After you posted the link I went and googled her, found her own compositions and I absolutely love them.
If you have time: please research Friedrich Gulda and if Kimiko isn't aware of him yet please introduce her to his music, he went through a similar path, originally classically trained eventually went for his own style. Here is a sample:
Thank you for this project, and thank you for sharing more about Kimiko. Congrats to her for her new baby, and for her astonishing achievements. I will always support anything that brings Bach to more people.
Can you talk about the production process for this project? What hardware and software was used for the recording (and mixing?) and the rendering of the video?
First, the score was made with MuseScore. Then it was prepared as an iPad App by the MuseScore team who custom made the synchronization between the score and the music. I then recorded the iPad app as a video using the "Reflector" program for Mac OS X. The iPad app doesn't exist anymore because it was not compatible with new versions of IOS.
Let's talk about Kimiko Ishizaka, the pianist. She always insists on standing in the background, letting her projects be about Bach, and public domain, while she quietly delivers the most stunning performances of these works that one can imagine.
Kimiko is German-Japanese. She grew up performing in a trio with her brothers who are also both notable classical musicians in Germany. In addition to the Goldberg Variations, she has recorded the Well-Tempered Clavier I (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPHIZw7HZq4), and The Art of the Fugue (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIrNDWqANCs) and released them into the public domain as well.
Then, in 2019, she did something completely new and released an album of her own, jazz-inspired compositions for solo piano called New Me! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph35hLwcckY&list=PLeWVBqJrTS...). She continues studying Jazz and is composing a cycle of songs (pop-jazz), and a series of ragtime pieces for piano.
Kimiko is very athletic, and has placed in the top-3 at the German nationals in both powelifting and olympic weightlifting. She has a room in her house which functions both as a piano practice room, and a gym. It is painted pink and decorated with Hello Kitty, because, well, she's a half-Japanese girl who loves Hello Kitty =)
The most amazing thing of all just happened to Kimiko, however. She gave birth to a beautiful son (https://twitter.com/KimikoIshizaka/status/127507285375949619...), just 5 days ago.