28/08/2009 [About Yamaha]
A 77-year-old Yamaha piano that survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima has become an international symbol for peace and will be heading for New York in 2010 as the city marks the ninth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The Yamaha upright piano was in the bomb's blast radius. It still retains very low levels of radiation and shards of glass are embedded in the black lacquer cabinet.
Mitsunori Yagawa, who restored the instrument and tours across Japan, playing it at peace concerts comments "during the bombing of Hiroshima, everything within two kilometres from ground zero was burned and destroyed, this piano was within that boundary and miraculously survived, I'm now planning to bring this piano to New York in the coming year, just in time for 9/11 to spread awareness about the atomic bomb and the preciousness of peace to the world"
Yagawa's father was exposed to radiation during the bombing, inspiring him to hold these concerts which he hopes will drill home the value of peace to the younger generations.
At the recent 64th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki which came a few days after Hiroshima, acclaimed composer and pianist Kansaku Tanikawa took to the piano's tarnished ivory keys for a moving performance at a memorial event in Tokyo, marvelling at the quality of the piano's sound and was moved to comment "The piano sounds so good it is hard to imagine that it was damaged by an atomic bomb."
