The Open Goldberg Variations project had a big success this January. Kimiko Ishizaka spent a week at the Teldex Studio in Berlin and recorded the Goldberg Variations. One of the interesting aspects of the project was the use of Bösendorfer's CEUS technology. This is a system that is built into the piano that allows it to play back whatever Kimiko recorded. We made a video of the Bösendorfer playing two unedited, unmixed tracks from the recording session. "Cuddly", who is damn cute, volunteered to be the pianist.

Kimiko recently travelled to Vienna, Austria, to meet the Bösendorfer team, visit their factory in Wiener Neustadt, and test drive the 290 Imperial CEUS that will be used for making the Goldberg Variations recording in January. It is good to start to get familiar with the sound, colors, touch and quirks of the piano.

The factory is simply amazing. Jan Sauerzapf, who is in charge of the CEUS technology department, gave a great tour and showed the entire process of building a Bösendorfer piano. The CEUS piano is amazing. It uses light sensors to measure the velocity of the hammers as they strike the string, and it measures the pedal movements as well. The result is a piano that plays itself as sensitively as the pianist. To use the software, one opens a remote desktop connection to the Windows XP computer that is inside the piano. Yes, there's a whole computer, in the piano.

More excitingly, the piano sounds awesome!!! Kimiko was thrilled by the richness and sheer colorfulness of the instrument. Many thanks to Jan Sauerzapf and the entire Bösendorfer team for the ongoing support!

Kimiko Ishizaka played an aggressive program in Bonn, Germany, on Sunday, March 13, and the critics loved it.

She played six preludes and fugues from the Well Tempered Klavier (BWV 854-859), Schubert's "Moments musicaux" D 780 op. 94, and the Goldberg Variations, with repeats.

Mathias Nofze of the Bonner General-Anzeiger wrote:

"She has matured into a high-profile soloist."

"Ishizaka played the six preludes and fugues from the Well Tempered Klavier with an impressively differentiated touch of expression, allowing the music to breathe beautifully, in keeping with the spirit of Bach, who wished for a 'cantabile style of playing'."

"Time and again the music plunged into the shadows of the extremely cautious and nuanced pianissimo range"

Felicitas Zink from the Rundschau wrote:

"She played with total focus on both the bass lines and the varied harmonies of this complicated composition, providing an appropriately rich variety of tempos. It was remarkably well-reproduced with only minimal pedaling: despite the piano lid being completely open, the lines were always clear and audible. "

"The clearly contoured yet richly contrasted musical structures unwound expressively in the intimately introspected slower variations, alongside the faster passages"

"A truly extraordinary, top-class piano evening!"

This photo was taken while Kimiko was warming up for the concert.

Kimiko has been studying Bach's Well Tempered Clavier and intends to perform the entire first volume in concerts in 2012. There are concerts planned in Ann Arbor, MI, New York, NY, and Rockport, MA, with others sure to come. Here is a sampling of her WTC from live performances in 2010 and 2011. Enjoy!

J.S. Bach, Well Tempered Clavier, Volume 1, played by Kimiko Ishizaka by Robert Douglass