When he gave me his program, I thought, "Three Sonatas?", like everybody else would. Well, the program turned out to be very carefully designed. As Tom described in the recital, these sonatas (Mozart K282, Chopin No3, and Beethoven No. 32) have completely different styles and couldn't be more different from each other.
They brought a wide variety of music to the evening, together with Ligeti's contemporary two etudes. Tom was such an expressive pianist with sensitivity, maturity and freshness - I loved his playing, don't you agree?
What a Rachmaninov player! He had obviously learned, practiced, and nurtured this Rachmaninov Sonata No. 2, and what a pleasure to listen to someone performing this piece so confidently and gorgeously right in front of us! Masayuki is a 'cool' pianist with a 'cool' manner and attitude towards performing his music.