DIFFERENT EYES, EARS, AND BODIES: PIANIST NOBUYUKI TSUJII AND THE EDUCATION OF THE SENSORIUM THROUGH MUSICAL PERFORMANCE by Stefan Sunandan Honisch B.MUS., University of Victoria, 2004 M. MUS., The University of British Columbia, 2007 M. MUS., The University of British Columbia, 2008 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Cross-Faculty Inquiry in Education) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) February 2016 © Stefan Sunandan Honisch, 2016 Abstract My dissertation explores the educative possibilities and limits of musical performance as a medium through which musicians and audiences reimagine sensory, affective, bodily, and cognitive experiences of music. The dissertation's focal point is a 2013 recital at the University of British Columbia by pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii, as part of Beyond the Screen: disAbility and the Arts, a series that raised questions about the reception of musicians with disabilities, the inclusion of disabled bodies in music pedagogy, and the meritocratic ethos that underpins competitive practices in music, education, and society. The polemical reception of Tsujii's shared gold medal with Haochen Zhang at the 2009 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas serves as the larger context for the present study. Speculation as to the role that Tsujii's blindness played in his favorable evaluation by the competition jury (Ivry, 2009) was countered by denial of any such influence (Kaplinsky, quoted in Wise, 2009), throwing into sharp relief a profound discomfort among musicians, critics and the general public with the disabled body in music. Tsujii himself declared shortly after the competition that he would like to be received as "simply a pianist" (Oda, 2009, para. 6) and has continued to resist the category of "blind pianist" (Ikenberg, 2014b, para. 8). Interviews with Tsujii and a purposive sample of eleven individual audience members following his 2013 UBC recital, combined with textual analysis of newspapers, magazines, and films documenting the pianist's career since 2009 locate Tsujii's reception in an educative gap between performer and audience, akin to that between teacher and student, a philosophical stance which emphasizes education as an interaction between the one who teaches and the one who learns (Biesta, 2004, p. 13). Showing how different levels of familiarity with the conventions of ii musical performance lead performers, critics, and audiences to interact with Tsujii as pianist and blind pianist in multiple and sometimes contradictory ways, this dissertation contributes to scholarship on the aesthetic and pedagogical significance of "person-first" versus "disability- first" language, the educative capacities of musical performance, and on the place of disabled bodies in music pedagogy. iii Preface This dissertation is based on original, independent research carried out by the author Stefan Sunandan Honisch. The interviews discussed in Chapters 4 and 5 were covered by University of British Columbia Behavioural Research Ethics Board Certificate H13-01785. iv Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... ii Preface............................................................................................................................................ iv Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................ v Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ ix Dedication ...................................................................................................................................... xi Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Background to the Research Problem ........................................................................... 1 1.2 Setting the Stage: Nobuyuki Tsujii and Haochen Zhang’s Shared Gold Medal at the 2009 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition ................................................... 11 1.3 Beyond the Screen: dis/Ability and the Arts............................................................... 15 1.4 Overview of Methodological Design .......................................................................... 19 1.5 Blindness and the International Piano Competition: A Survey .................................. 25 1.6 Media Reception of the 2009 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition ............ 29 1.7 Scope of Dissertation: Restatement of Research Topic and Central Questions ......... 33 Chapter 2: Review of the Scholarly Literature ............................................................................. 39 2.1 Overview of Chapter ................................................................................................... 39 2.2 Pianism and Blindness: What Happens To Be in the Vexed Relationship Between Disability and Selfhood? ............................................................................................. 41 v 2.3 Locating Musicians with Disabilities as Public Intellectuals in the Relational Gap Between Musical Performance and Reception ........................................................... 42 2.4 Person-First or Disability-First? Representational Schemes and the Education of the Sensorium ................................................................................................................... 62 Chapter 3: Theoretical Framework and Methodology .................................................................. 80 3.1 Overview of Chapter ................................................................................................... 80 3.2 Recapitulation of Central Questions ........................................................................... 82 3.3 Situating Nobuyuki Tsujii's Reception in the Semiotic Streams of Music, Disability, and Education.............................................................................................................. 92 3.4 Towards a Pragmatic Methodological Design: In-depth Interviews and Textual Analysis of Media Reception ...................................................................................... 99 3.5 Nobuyuki Tsujii as Blind Pianist, Pianist and Real Pianist ...................................... 108 3.6 Signs of the Pianistic Self in Performance ................................................................ 112 3.7 Signs of the Pianistic Self in Reception .................................................................... 113 3.8 Signs of Firstness: Rhemes ....................................................................................... 118 3.9 Signs of Secondness: Dicents ................................................................................... 118 3.10 Signs of Thirdness: Arguments ................................................................................. 119 3.11 Semiotic Codes: The Rules and Conventions of Western Art Music Performance and Reception .................................................................................................................. 121 3.12 Preview of Chapters 4 and 5 ..................................................................................... 124 vi Chapter 4: Blindness and Pianism (Not) Seen and (Not) Heard ................................................. 127 4.1 Overview of Chapter ................................................................................................. 127 4.2 Explanation of the Key Semiotic Terms: Rhemes, Dicents, and Arguments ........... 134 4.3 Sounds as Rhemes, Dicents, and Arguments: (In)Audible Interpretants Interpreted 138 4.4 Images as Rhemes, Dicents, and Arguments: (In)Visible Interpretants Interpreted . 159 4.5 Ideas as Rhemes, Dicents, and Arguments: (Un) Conventional Interpretants Interpreted ................................................................................................................. 167 4.6 Emotions as Rhemes, Dicents, and Arguments: (Un)Affecting Interpretants Interpreted ................................................................................................................. 179 4.7 Vague Feelings as Rhemes, Dicents, and Arguments: (Un)Certain Interpretants Interpreted ................................................................................................................. 180 4.8 And So Forth: (Im)Possible Interpretants and the Fictive Simplicity of Being a Pianist ................................................................................................................................... 183 Chapter 5: Towards a Musical Education of the Sensorium....................................................... 190 5.1 Overview of Chapter ................................................................................................. 190 5.2 Sign-Interpretant Relationships and Meaning Revisted ........................................... 192 5.3 Sounds as Rhemes, Dicents, and Arguments: (In)Audible Interpretants Interpreted 196 5.4 Images as Rhemes, Dicents, and Arguments: (In)Visible Interpretants Interpreted . 221 5.5 Ideas as Rhemes, Dicents, Arguments: (Un)conventional Interpretants Interpreted . 230 vii 5.6 Emotions as Rhemes, Dicents,