CD-Charts Position 1
Average Rating:

Memoirs of a Geisha

from: Sony

Release Date November 22, 2005
I love this soundrack. The music is very Japanesse traditional. I love to listen to it at work because it is soft and relaxing.

CD-Charts Position 2
Average Rating:

Beyond Standard

by: Hiromi

Release Date June 10, 2008
Hiromi's Sonicbloom performed last May 3rd, during Rota dos Bons Ventos Festival at Faial isl., Azores. Along with some musics from her previous CDs, like Time Control, a few tracks from Beyond Standard were played, among them Caravan, etc. Then I just had to wait for June 10th to order my copy of this really fantastic cd. On stage Hiromi sometimes looks like a Kung-Fu fighter in bursts of energy that often end up on a delicate note. Her band doesn't deceive the genious piano player, nor the audience. Standards are standards, but they have been played, and will be, in many different ways and this is a very special one. Really suggested to music lovers and if Hiromi is in town, don't miss the show.

CD-Charts Position 3
Average Rating:

Time Control

by: Hiromi's Sonicbloom

Release Date March 27, 2007
Hiromi's star continues to rise with this album. This is one sizzling quartet, with all the chops to make her compositions breathe fire, and yet all the passion to keep it genuinely human and warm. Let's run down the track list:

The opening of "Time Difference" seems at first to harken back to Rick Wakeman's prototypic "Six Wives of Henry VIII". But the pot is stirred very early on, with lots of slithering, microtonal dialogue between Hiromi and guitarist Fiuczynski. On balance, a wonderfully virtuoso opening for the album.

"Time Out" is a rollicking up-tempo shuffle with an infectious sense of fun, even as it revels in its dissonances. Some great solo work by Fiuczynski here.

"Time Travel" is a complex ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 4
Average Rating:

Spiral

by: Hiromi

Release Date January 17, 2006
I was doing a little research for a radio show on music coming out of Japan and stumbled across this CD. What luck! This is the best new pianist I've heard in many years! I'm not alone in thinking this: At seven Hiromi was accepted as a student at the Yamaha School of Music in her native Japan; at 14 she went to play with the Czech Philharmonic; at 17 Chick Corea invited her to play with him! (The influence is obvious in some of her other work.) At 20 Hiromi came to the USA and attended Berklee School of Music, graduating in 2004.

Since then there have been four Hiromi CDs that I know about, and they're all utterly amazing, though each is a bit different. I think Spiral is a bit truer to the jazz genre (and was awarded a Grand Prize by Swing ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 5
Average Rating:

Brain

by: Hiromi

Release Date May 25, 2004
I have to wonder what the guy who wrote "But on musical taste I would file this between Weird Al Yancovich and Alvin and the Chimpunks" was listening to. Couldn't have been this CD. Granted, he is entitled to his opinion and I am no authority on jazz piano but I think he was being just a tad harsh. If she was THAT bad would a world renowned and respected musician such as Chick Corea invite her onstage to do some piano improvisations? Hmmm....maybe Chick's ears aren't what they used to be, or was someone holding a gun to his head?

I hear some really beautiful playing by Hiromi on this disc and the bassist and drummer lend excellent support. Maybe she pisses some people off because she mixes in some electronic keyboards and we all know how that ruffles ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 6
Average Rating:

Another Mind

by: Hiromi

Release Date April 22, 2003
Her music with more guitar of late around 2006/7 is stronger as just piano trios are rather limited these days unless they're EST(Esbjorn Svensson)Nevertheless switches to one hand on other electric keyboards cleverly,and knows a good range of slower moods to go with the lightning fast,a great world artiste to add to the jazz range.

CD-Charts Position 7
Average Rating:

György Kurtág: Signs, Games and Messages

from: Ecm Records

Release Date July 22, 2003
This ECM disc continues the label's dedication to the music of Gyorgy Kurtag, whose work is increasingly making use of the sort of portentious silences that ECM specializes in. The performers have all closely worked with Kurtag for years and in fact premiered the pieces: Kurt Widmer (baritone), Mircea Ardeleanu (percussion), Hiromi Kikuchi (violin), Ken Hakii (viola) and Stefan Metz (cello).

"...pas à pas -- nulle part..." poèmes de Samuel Beckett op. 36 (1993-1998) sets some of the English playwright's idiosyncratic poetry as well as the maxims of Sébastien Chamfort which he translated into English. While scored for the peculiar ensemble of baritone, percussion and string trio, the baritone clearly carries the bulk of the work. Solo percussion delineates sections of the ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 8
Average Rating:

Kronos Quartet : Winter Was Hard

by: Aulis Sallinen, Terry Riley, Arvo Part, Anton Webern, John Zorn, John Lurie, Astor Piazzolla, Alfred Schnittke, Samuel Barber, Anonymous, Hank Dutt, David Harrington, Joan Jeanrenaud, John Sherba, Earl L. Miller, Christian Marclay, Ohta Hiromi, Kronos Quartet

Release Date October 25, 1990
I love the Kronos. I love their pluck and their popularity with a young audience. I love them for opening ears to contemporary music. But sometimes I wish they'd prove that they can get less edgy when the music calls for it. Sometimes I hear them forcing the music bar by bar and missing whatever unity the whole piece should have.

On this CD, the weakest performances are Arvo Part's Fratres, which doesn't want to be overinterpreted, and Anton Webern's Six Bagatelles, which isn't and shouldn't sound like minimalism. Lots of other quartets have recorded the Webern, in case you want to compare.

The best performances, IMHO, are Aulis Sallinen's brief and beautiful Winter Was Hard, and Alfred Schnittke's Quarter #3. Frankly I didn't expect the Kronos to handle Schnittke well, ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 9
Average Rating:

Spiral

by: Hiromi

Release Date January 17, 2006
I love the Kronos. I love their pluck and their popularity with a young audience. I love them for opening ears to contemporary music. But sometimes I wish they'd prove that they can get less edgy when the music calls for it. Sometimes I hear them forcing the music bar by bar and missing whatever unity the whole piece should have.

On this CD, the weakest performances are Arvo Part's Fratres, which doesn't want to be overinterpreted, and Anton Webern's Six Bagatelles, which isn't and shouldn't sound like minimalism. Lots of other quartets have recorded the Webern, in case you want to compare.

The best performances, IMHO, are Aulis Sallinen's brief and beautiful Winter Was Hard, and Alfred Schnittke's Quarter #3. Frankly I didn't expect the Kronos to handle Schnittke well, ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 10
Average Rating:

Beyond Standard

by: Hiromi

Release Date June 10, 2008
Hiromi's Sonicbloom performed last May 3rd, during Rota dos Bons Ventos Festival at Faial isl., Azores. Along with some musics from her previous CDs, like Time Control, a few tracks from Beyond Standard were played, among them Caravan, etc. Then I just had to wait for June 10th to order my copy of this really fantastic cd. On stage Hiromi sometimes looks like a Kung-Fu fighter in bursts of energy that often end up on a delicate note. Her band doesn't deceive the genious piano player, nor the audience. Standards are standards, but they have been played, and will be, in many different ways and this is a very special one. Really suggested to music lovers and if Hiromi is in town, don't miss the show.