MAY 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM SPOTLIGHT sakiko nomura hiromi A Japanese jazz prodigy finds her voice as she returns to a healing home When a devastating earthquake had the impression that music makes people and tsunami struck Japan in March, many happy. i loved making people happy and touring artists canceled their plans to visit. wanted to keep doing that.” Japanese classical and jazz pianist hiromi, her latest album, Voice, is making people however, rearranged her touring plans to happy around the world. the album’s title, come home. “Bands have just stopped hiromi says, suggests its overall concept. coming, and i respect that decision,” “i wanted to capture people’s inner voices, she says from tokyo, where she has just and the screaming is represented in the completed a string of 18 benefit concerts. repeated piano notes,” she emphasizes. “i “But things are totally functioning in tokyo. wanted a three-dimensional sound. it was MAY 2011 sometimes the news broadcasts are much almost like the voice of the people was coming M MUSIC & MUSICIANS more dramatic than what it is. We have to me from here, there and everywhere, a normal life, but we’re trying to recover from every angle.” MAGAZINE emotionally and psychologically. there is hiromi plays other tracks, such as the not that much physical damage in tokyo, but groove-oriented “Flashback” and the moody, we have psychological damage.” minimalist “delusion,” with a controlled fury. Born hiromi uehara in hamamatsu, “When i listen to the album i can feel the story Japan, hiromi began playing classical piano from the first to last track, and that was what at 5 before gravitating toward jazz when i was the happiest about,” she says. “When she was just 8. “My mother took me to i was making this album, i was thinking a lot piano and swimming lessons like every other about making it like a book or movie. When kid,” says hiromi, who went on to study at it was released in Japan, a lot of people told Boston’s Berklee College of Music. “the me that if they stopped the Cd right before only thing i fell in love with was the piano. the ending track, they felt nervous. they i was fascinated by how much energy the wanted to hear the whole thing to the end. music brought me. i was so happy playing, the album has a really connected musical and i realized that everyone who was around life, and i am really happy about that.” me when i was playing was always smiling. i –Jeff Niesel 2222 M mag 11.indd 22 6/1/11 9:59:50 PM.