by Stephanie Manning
Right after Kotaro Fukuma became the First Prize winner of the Cleveland International Piano Competition, the then 20-year-old pianist went through a rollercoaster of emotions.
“ Of course, I was overjoyed,” he said in a recent interview, remembering how he called his parents to celebrate. But when he woke up the next morning, the review in The Plain Dealer told a different story. The first line: “Did the wrong pianist win the 2003 Cleveland International Piano Competition?”
“I was so shocked,” Fukuma said. “The night before I was congratulated by many, many people, and the next day I read this newspaper and think, ‘Oh my gosh, how can I leave my hotel?’”
More than 20 years later, the pianist views that experience as an important turning point. After that bittersweet victory, “I accepted all kinds of engagements and I forced myself to study harder. And I think that was the right attitude.”
Today, Fukuma has curated a healthy international career, splitting his time between Berlin, Leiden, and Tokyo. And on Thursday, July 31, he will return to Cleveland after a long absence to perform on Piano Cleveland’s 2025 Piano Days series. Tickets for the 7:30 pm performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music are available online.
The pianist has been performing the program “Shimmering Water — 洸” since 2012, making it what he calls one of his “life projects.” The name comes from the first character of his name, 洸 (pronounced “Ko”), which visually combines two components meaning “water” and “light.”
He said that both audience members and friends have described his playing with those qualities. “It’s really been a source of inspiration. Every time I see shimmering water, I feel so happy.”
Some of the works are directly tied to water, like Jeux d’eau by Maurice Ravel and Water Dance by Karen Tanaka. Also in that category is Prayer on the Seashore by Kôhei Kondô. Subtitled “In Memoriam of Victims of Earthquake and Nuclear Reactors,” this work was written after the devastating 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.
“When I play this piece, I try to get connected with those people who were affected by the disaster,” Fukuma said. “I hope I can share this meditation with the audience beautifully in the beginning of the concert.”
At the opposite end of the program is Claude Debussy’s L’Isle joyeuse. That work makes for a fitting finale, because “ it ends in quite a brilliant way,” the pianist said. By contrast, “many of the pieces I’m going to play end very quietly and sometimes mysteriously.”
Thierry Huillet’s 7 Haiku sur le thème de l’eau bridges the gap between French and Japanese influences. Fukuma has become good friends with Huillet, the 1987 CIPC First Prize winner who was on the jury for Fukuma’s win in 2003. “ I can tell it was written by a a European composer,” the pianist said, describing how the piece combines pentatonic scales with Western harmonic forms. “So it’s a fusion. It’s very beautiful.”
Another piece inspired by that Japanese poetry is Yuka Takechi’s Winter Light / Ephemera — after the haiku by Muro Saisei, which takes listeners on a journey flying over a frozen lake. “For me, this piece is probably the most Japanese on the program,” Fukuma said. That’s because equal importance is given both to the notes and the spaces in between.
“These spaces are so important in Japanese culture, not only in the music, but in the paintings and poetry. In a haiku, you cannot explain everything. You have to imagine what’s happening.”
Fukuma has become known for his collaborations between classical music and other art forms from his home country — everything from visual art to figure skating. Tôru Takemitsu’s Rain Tree Sketch draws on literature by musically interpreting a passage from a book by Kenzaburo Oe.
Takemitsu was renowned during the 20th century, and today, Ichirô Nodaïra is a major figure in Japan’s classical music industry. “I appreciate him a lot — not only as a composer, but he’s a wonderful pianist as well,” Fukuma said. Couleurs de l’eau et de la terre, which Nodaïra wrote for him last year, is “not only about the colors, but several different scenes of nature. Sometimes it can be quite aggressive.”
By contrast, Karen Tanaka’s Water Dance creates a tranquil mood. “Her music is very pleasant to listen to, because it’s tonal and there’s a quite clear structure,” Fukuma said.
Those calming qualities also make Tanaka’s work a great choice for Fukuma’s appearance at the Cleveland Museum of Art. On Tuesday, July 29, he will create a sound installation paired with the exhibition Takashi Murakami: Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow. At 12:00 pm that day, the pianist will fill the Ames Family Atrium with music by Tanaka, Takemitsu, and Ryuichi Sakamoto.
Fukuma wasn’t very familiar with Murakami’s work before looking him up. But “ I was impressed by his great achievement as an artist,” he said. “I understand how he became so popular, even outside of Japan.”
Visiting the Museum of Art is also something he wanted to check off his Cleveland bucket list. It’s been at least 15 years since he last visited the city, and he’s got plenty of places and people to visit — like Severance Hall, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and old friends and host families.
So “ I have a lot of things to do,” he said. “Not just to perform — I want to see the changes and transitions of the town as well.”
Published on ClevelandClassical.com July 23, 2025.
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