Apr 29, 2008
Tanimichi Sugita
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Tanimichi Sugita died April 27 at Greenwich Hospital. He was 75 years old.
Mr. Sugita, whose first name implies a meeting of East and West (Tani means Spirit of the Valley of Lao-tzu and Michi means Logos) devoted his life to realizing the prinicple of one world through the universality of music.
“Music exists only in performance,” Mr. Sugita once said. “It is the soul’s medium for divine communication. Music is m y daily act of faith in the beautiful, the mystic and the spiritual. My motto is ‘cor ad cor loquitur,’ heart speaks to heart.”
Born in Toyohashi, Japan, Mr. Sugita graduated from Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo, receiving his bachelor’s and master’s degrees cum laude from Juilliard School. After successful New York and London debuts, he has givien countless recitals, benefit concerts, master-classes and lecture recitals throughout the United States, Japan, Europe and Asia. Acclaimed for his “expressively beautiful and elegant tone, inimitable pianissimo, exquisite sensitivity and finesse” he was renowned as one of the foremost interpreters of Beethoven and the Romantics.
Mr. Sugita taught at Juilliard, Rutgers University and University of Colorado, and was pianist-in-residence at Mississippi University for women and Edinbergh University. He was professor at Elizabeth University of Music in Hiroshima, Japan, and lecturer at Sophia University in Tokyo and Nanzan University in Nagoya, Japan, and the Cultural Envoy for Japan Foundation.
The father and son duo recitals with son Ken, violinist at Lille National Symphony Orchestra of France, were popular with music lovers.
Mr. Sugita and his wife, Rei, settled in Greenwich in 1998. He became gravely ill in fall of 1999 and made a miraculous recovery. He then made several concert tours in Japan and was featured at First Presbyterian Church of Greenwich’s “Music from the Top” on March 30, 2005.
He is survived by his wife, sons Ken and Jo, daughter Lili Foster and five grandchildren.
Calling hours are 4 to 8 p.m. Friday, May 2, at the Castiglione Funeral Home, 134 Hamilton Ave. A funeral Mass will be held 10:30 on Saturday, May 3 at St. Catherine of Siena Church, 4 Riverside Ave.
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
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