“Music speaks through me”
The West Windsor Music Festival, created and directed by renowned pianist Sakiko Ohashi, will be returning this month for its fourth annual concert. This year’s concert series will feature a collection of solo and duet concertos by Jazz improvisationalist and classical pianist Nick Sanders, as well as performances by acclaimed viola and violinist Amadi Azikiwe and decorated violinist Joanna Maurer. These musicians will share the stage with Ohashi, thrilling audiences throughout the weekend as they perform works by Bach, Shostakovich, and Debussy, among others.
Ohashi, a native Japanese pianist, began her classical music studies at the age of 4, and by 10 she was accepted to the Juilliard Pre-College Division of Herbert Stessin. Ohashi has since gone on to complete a Bachelor’s and Master’s in Music from Juilliard, performing on various stages across the United States and internationally in Japan, Canada, and Europe.
The festival will open with Ohashi, accompanied by her former student, Nick Sanders.
Sanders began playing piano at the age of seven. Exposed to the beauty of classical music at a young age by his mother, his love for the art only grew after her untimely passing in his early teen years. “My mother was always playing music around the house. It was an art instilled in me from a very young age,” Sanders told the Standard. “I attended the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts when I was fourteen and specialized in classical music for the first two years. That is where I met Sakiko.”
Sanders, who has recently begun dabbling in the improvisation of classical style music, plans to perform his own compositions in addition to his duets with Ohashi. He will join Ohashi on stage on Friday evening, June 27, for the opening ceremony, and again on Saturday, June 28, for the “A Little Jazz, A Little Fun” event geared towards children.
Ohashi went on to speak about the process of choosing the specific pieces she will be playing with Sanders, and the feelings they evoke in her when performed. “There are so many different emotions and sentiments attached to Bach and Chopin. For the latter, his love for country, a country he could never return to, radiates through his music. I feel very connected to this feeling. I am a person who, like Chopin, has two homes. I have lived in America for a very long time, but I am Japanese and still have very strong roots to Japan. I can always go back, but there are many people around me who can no longer return to their homeland, and that isolation permeates throughout spaces I inhabit. Not only is this feeling embedded in Chopin’s music, but I also find his work to be harmonious, intimate, and some of the most layered piano music I have ever had the pleasure of performing.”
On Saturday, June 28, Ohashi will perform with renowned violist Amadi Azikiwe. Azikiwe, who began studying classical music at a young age, has gone on to master four instruments – the piano, the cello, the violin, and the viola. A graduate of the New England Conservatory, he performs internationally.
To conclude the festival, Ohashi will be joined on stage by renowned violinist Joanna Maurer, with whom they will perform two pieces. Born and raised in Colorado, Maurer has performed as an orchestral soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician throughout the United States, as well as in Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic.
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