From the Wall Street Journal:Japan’s 20-year-old Nobuyuki Tsujii is the first blind person to win the prestigious Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Tsuijii learns new pieces by listening and memorization, not by reading notes.
Tsujii tied for first place at the 17-day competition in Fort Worth, Texas, which required that each of the finalists play a range of music including three recitals and two concerti.
"Some critics’ responses have been less favorable … The Dallas Morning News said “too much of Tsujii’s performance was limp and colorless,” and suggested that his blindness was a factor in the results.
Veda Kaplinsky, a Cliburn jurist who chairs the piano department at the Juilliard School, said Mr. Tsujii’s blindness played no role in his win. “He touched us with very honest, very forthright and very beautiful musicianship,” she said."
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