Kotaro Oshio Passenger (2020)

Born in Tokyo, Kotaro Fukuma began learning piano at the age of five and has received many high awards in international competitions, including the Arthur Rubinstein, Tel Aviv; Paloma O’Shea, Santander; Maj Lind, Helsinki; BNDES, Rio De Janeiro; and Gina Bachauer, Salt Lake City. In 2003, at the age of 20, Kotaro won both First Prize and the Chopin Prize at the 15th Cleveland International Piano Competition. Since then his concert career has developed on five continents (North and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia).

Born in Tokyo, Kotaro Fukuma began learning piano at the age of five and has received many high awards in international competitions, including the Arthur Rubinstein, Tel Aviv; Paloma O’Shea, Santander; Maj Lind, Helsinki; BNDES, Rio De Janeiro; and Gina Bachauer, Salt Lake City. In 2003, at the age of 20, Kotaro won both First Prize and the Chopin Prize at the 15th Cleveland International Piano Competition. Since then his concert career has developed on five continents (North and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia).

Kazumi Watanabe has for the past 20 years been one of the top guitarists in fusion, a rock-oriented player whose furious power does not mask a creative imagination. Watanabe studied guitar at Tokyo's Yamaha Music School and he was a recording artist while still a teenager. In 1979, he formed the group Kylyn and, in 1983, he put together the Mobo band. Several of his recordings have been made available by Gramavision and they show that he ranks up with Al DiMeola (when he is electrified) and Scott Henderson among the pacesetters in the idiom. ~ Scott Yanow.

"Through the Eyes of Others" is Petteri Sariola's impressions of some of his favorite songs. With only acoustic guitar and vocals, Sariola is a one-man wrecking crew, using his extended guitar techniques and guitar percussion to hold down all the band parts and then some. Petteri Sariola is a phenomenon, mostly known for his percussive approach on the acoustic guitar. He picked it up at the age of 7 but after countless non-functional bands he ended up developing a virtuosic style of his own, covering all the sounds of a full band on an acoustic guitar while singing his heart out. No loops, no backing tracks. Sariola has played almost a thousand shows, toured solo around Europe, USA and Japan and reached millions of viewers on YouTube. Sariola's solo albums "Silence!", "Phases" and Dead Sirius 3000's "Get Sirius" have all been released in Europe and they are available in Japan by King Records. His latest solo album "Through The Eyes Of Others" is released by both King Records and the American CandyRat Records, the most notable label specialized in fingerstyle guitar music.

A journey to visit the vast world of fantasy of these two giant stars in the history of piano music. Last year and this year marked the 150th anniversary of the birth of two great composers/pianists.

For many years now, I have been playing piano transcriptions in my recitals, and the programme on this disc was originally devised for my concert at the Valletta Baroque Music Festival in Malta in January 2020. I have special affinity with many of the pieces, but here I will share just a couple. One is my own transcription of the aria “Erbarme Dich, mein Gott”, which I first performed at a Preface concert entitled “Homage to Toru Takemitsu”.