Kawai Pianos have built a reputation for producing high quality pianos, not just for practise at home, but also for world class artists on the concert platform. This relationship between manufacturer and artist has always been very important, as it pushes a manufacturer like Kawai to keep refining their instruments and improving them.
One such artist who works closely with Kawai is the pianist, conductor and composer Mikhail Pletnev. At the age of 13 he went to study piano at the Moscow Conservatory and in 1978 Pletnev won the Gold Medal at the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow. Since then he has performed all over the world with many of the world’s leading orchestras and has been widely acclaimed as one of the finest pianists of his generation.
Mikhail Pletnev
After a hiatus from performing the piano, Pletnev returned to the concert platform in 2013, forming a partnership with Kawai that remains strong to this day. He has championed the qualities of the Shigeru Kawai concert grand piano, making full use of its broad dynamic range and expressive capabilities. Kawai also provides one of their skilled technicians to each venue that Pletnev performs at, allowing fine tuning of the instrument to his exact requirements. The need for this level of detail is very clear to Pletnev as he has commented in one interview,
“A hobby pilot does not need the same machine as an acrobatic pilot. Acrobatic pilots require a machine that is at their complete command and allows them to perform any maneuver at any time. I need that same kind of piano because I am not a hobby pianist.”