Chapter 9: The Seidai

       “My first recital? I was seven, I think, maybe six. The auditorium was packed with about three hundred parents and students. I remember being so terrified walking out onto that stage that I curtsied and thought I wet myself. When I sat down I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to play and just started playing. When I was finished I ran off the stage in tears and hid behind a water cooler. When my father caught me behind the stage, he reminded me, in tears, that Twelve Variations on ‘Ah vous dirai-je, Maman’ was the song I was supposed to play. You know, ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star?’ What I’d played was Debussy’s Claire De Lune. After that, I was bound for Tokyo and the Musashino Academia Musicae. Y...

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