Issue 8 Perfectly tuned insurance FOLLOW YOUR HEART Featuring Aisa Ijiri Perfectly tuned insurance 01 8 12 Foreward from the Editor Follow your heart – quite a theme for this issue of LARKmusic which applauds people who each follow a unique path in our world of music. We gasp in amazement in our cover story with 16 24 26 pianist Aisa Ijiri, whose talents seem never ending! Paul Bambrough also followed his heart to join the Purcell School and I am pleased to share his plans to lead the school into the future. Violin-maker John Topham makes our pages; he is a world-renowned dendrochronologist, who, after making his own ‘kit’ can reveal if you have a Strad or a dud! We also welcome Julia Bell as our guest writer with her imaginative view on the 1, 4-7 FOLLOW YOUR HEART relationship between art and contemporary music. Cover story: Pianist Aisa Ijiri reveals her musical journey We congratulate the Endellion String Quartet on Picture: John Davis As one of the leading musical their 40th anniversary and introduce someone instrument insurance brokers who is just starting out - our new Lark Scholar, in the world with more than 25 Vera Beumer, who at 17 has the world at her feet. 8-11 TALENT UNLIMITED years’ experience in our field, Lark Talking of youth, we also feature Talent Unlimited, Music is trusted by professionals A call for more support by founder Canan Maxton a charity run by music lover Canan Maxton and the and world-renowned musicians. testimonies from the young musicians who benefit 12-14 IT’S ALL ABOUT THE FUTURE The Lark Music policy has are really heart warming. been specifically designed for Meet the new Purcell School principal Paul Bambrough I hope you enjoy this new-look issue and the musicians, and allows you to play exclusive features. If you have a story please your instrument with complete get in touch! 15 WE ALL WISH FOR A RESOLUTION peace of mind while the bespoke business insurance policy for Private Clients Director David Foster talks Brexit dealers is crafted with your individual needs in mind and can 16-17 MEET VERA provide cover for all of your stock, tools, materials, and machinery. Introducing our new Lark Scholar, Vera Beumer In addition, we realise our responsibility extends beyond 18 PLAY SAFE IN GIG ECONOMY insurance and pride ourselves on Why musicians playing gigs in public areas need cover our unique involvement in the arts through our support of a number of musical organisations. Julie Webb Client Director 20-23 MUSICAL NOTES Lark Music is a trading name [email protected] News on life at Lark Music of Aston Lark. This specialist division provides products to 24-25 LORD OF THE RINGS all audiences in music including musicians, collectors and dealers. Meet John Topham, the self-taught dendrochronologist The online quote and buy portal enables customers to buy 26-28 MUSIC AND CONTEMPORARY ART insurance 24/7 and is supported Julia Bell explores the relationship between art and music by dedicated individuals with extensive knowledge in the sector. 30 IN TUNE WITH HISTORY Visit astonlark.com Charlotte Barrett views the Bate Collection 2 FOLLOW YOUR HEART It wasn’t until Aisa Ijiri came to Europe that the work of the great composers really touched her soul and she realised, in order to play Liszt and Chopin with true understanding, she would have to leave her Japanese homeland, writes Lesley Bellew It might have been the feet of Aisa Ijiri course to honour advice from her beloved She is still friends with some of the gifted of Byron and Shakespeare, which in turn concert, a standing ovation, which was which propelled her to international grandfather, who told her “Follow your young Hungarian students who helped brought a meeting with a director keen to more than I had dreamt about since I was stardom. Instead, her lithe fingers, heart”. her to see music as a universal language, make a film inspired by her life. seven years old. I played three encores I remember drawing mesmerising music from piano as they played duets as well as solo pieces. and tears ran down my face. She recalls the chance, at the age of She has founded a music festival to offer “ keys on the world’s leading concert everything – stages, have earned prizes, acclaim, the 12, to take part in a festival at the Liszt “They were speaking Hungarian, German opportunities for youngsters in concerts, “My parents, and close friends from a sold-out concert, standing of becoming an official Steinway Academy in Budapest, Hungary, and and a little bit of English. In rehearsals masterclasses and workshops, which Japan, Serbia, Sweden and London, who Artist and a tearful fulfilment of her says: “That trip changed my life. I visited we didn’t speak the same language but as was first held in Tokyo in 2016, then in meant so much to me on my journey, had a standing ovation, dream of performing at Carnegie Hall. where Liszt and Bartok had performed, soon as we started playing we understood Belgrade with the support of the Serbian travelled to be there. we could connect and we were laughing government. As artistic director, Aisa is which was more and saw their pianos. I had masterclasses “At that moment I remembered words How many of the thousands of concert- so much. Many things in society divide us now launching the Montecatini Piano with a professor from the academy and a from my grandfather Isao Takei, who goers, enthralled each year by her but music always pulls us together. Festival, in Tuscany, Italy, from August than I had dreamt performance where Bartok had given his passed away when I was five. He was playing, realise that the feet springing 16 in collaboration with Municipal last concert.” “A competitive athlete’s career I might running quite a big company so I was about since I was from pedal to pedal once sprinted along Institution of Montecatini Terme and have had until I was 25, when the purpose proud of him. He had a driver who wore the athletics tracks of Japan with such Already nurturing a special love for Steinway & Sons Italia. seven years old. speed that a career as an Olympic 100m the music of Chopin, she had observed is always winning. With music I can have white gloves and people who opened I played three en- runner was a very real possibility? European culture through the internet a much richer life. That trip made it clear I All this is part of an ambition to grow his door for him. He was very tall and and television, but she said: “There should choose music.” as an artist after reaching her goal of everybody in the company bowed to him. cores and tears ran Also competing at national level in performing at New York’s Carnegie Hall swimming and figure skating, and a keen was this spirit, something in the air, Music has led to Aisa working on “But the day before he died, from a in 2017. down on my face” skier, the young Aisa might have seemed something from the people. We have to children’s programmes with Unicef and stroke, he was running around in this big destined for a life in sport – until music be there and feel it. I felt I had touched the on a cultural project for the European “It was an opening to a new chapter,” she house with me. He told me that day: brought her to Europe, and set her on soul of Liszt and his soul was inside me.” Commission, based around the writings said. “I remember everything – a sold-out ‘If you go to school you may want to → 4 5 Perfectly tuned insurance Issue 8 TRACKS OF AISA’S LIFE: Clockwise from top: The family home in Kyoto, Aisa in a 100m race, her first concert at Alti Hall, Kyoto; with her parents Katsumi and Yoko, and taking centre stage in Carnegie Hall, New York BACK TO FUTURE: Film shooting in Florence for the film AISA, Sonetto del Petrarca, directed by Marco della Fonte be the best student or the prettiest girl too! I loved adventure so much, I had no thought I was so talented!” her Bachelor’s degree, she moved to of three grand pianos in the home where → but those things don’t matter – whatever fear.” → London after passing an audition for a her mother was a tutor – but her official Another happy coincidence was a you go through just follow your heart.’ I Masters course at the Guildhall School of association with the company was the Neither did she have much rest in her busy close friend of her uncle had a flat in didn’t understand, but I never forgot. At Music and Drama. childhood, reading music in the car as her Östermalm, Stockholm’s equivalent of silver lining to an initial mishap. that moment in Carnegie Hall I thought parents drove five hours from their home South Kensington, providing delightful Having observed Japanese cultural I had followed my heart. This was it, the A performance she was due to give at the in Kyoto for piano studies in Tokyo, then accommodation, and Aisa soon took to niceties, and adapted to social message he had been telling me.” Royal College of Music had to be moved, revising for school exams on the return European life, having to learn Swedish expectations in Sweden, she said: because of building work, to Steinway The daughter of a piano teacher, Aisa had journey.