I have just been made aware through looking at someone else's blog, that the blogspot page a friend made for me in Tokyo several years ago is still in existence.

At that time I didn't feel a need to write much, but since returning to New Zealand 3 years ago a knot of voiceless experience has formed inside me and I have been waiting for a long time for a chance to unravel this knot.

I have also just been made aware from one of my instagram followers that apparently this is not a dress rehearsal. It is good to be reminded of this, for I feel that since returning to this country which I irrevocably come from, the sense that I am living has been dwindling and that while still living I am struggling for life. I am suffering from no mortal disease, but a sickness of the soul.

It was in Dunedin that I made Death's acquaintance. He became a familiar figure, a close companion. Since then when I read of someone else's closeness to death, as in the programme note to a Mahler symphony, I am deeply moved, I understand what it means, I feel more empathy for that person than I do for the others around me, the living (unless some of them are also hiding their tight knot of death inside them, guarding it closely, hoping that no-one will notice it.)

There is a painting by Marina Antonova which expresses this feeling I feel very well. Whether she intended to convey this feeling or not, it is for saying this feeling that this painting is precious to me. In the painting there are four humans, laughing. In the middle of them is a dead white horse lying on a table in a pool of its own blood. The people, two on either side, are completely unaware of this horse and unconcerned by it. This horse symbolizes what it is like to be dead among the living. They are laughing away, enjoying life. You are dead. The white horse is everything noble and pure. The people are just people, banal and other. Irrevocably other.

I had tried writing for a friend's online project, but it is with a sense of relief that I now write under my own auspices. Only I will take responsibility for what I write. I may be contemptible, but through writing these words I realize that I am also human. With these words I fight the death inside me. These words are a will to life. Unlike the piano or photography I have no ambitions with words and I hope I can keep it that way. Words are still beautifully pure and unsullied. Words are fresh water for me. I need not try to attempt a style, I can just use them as tools, wonderfully impartial, they will say what I want to say.

Liszt & Schubert Concert Shibuya Shoto Salon February 20 2011 7pm

Kunitachi Concert November 13 2010

 国立サロンコンサート１１月１３日
Piano Salon Concert
November 13 2010, 3pm,
Music Space Paulia

Programme
Schubert: Impromptus, D899
Schumann: Kriesleriana, Op.16
Chopin: Barcarolle, Op.60

ピアノサロンコンサート
１１月１３日２０１０、１５：００
ポーリアサロンルーム

曲目
シューベルト：即興曲、D.899
シューマアン：クライスレリアーナOp.１６
ショパン：舟歌、Op. 60