Can't Hayato afford a haircut? What's with all the hair, which looks wet? As to the playing, I've not heard very much of his, but googled him and a video of him playing Hungarian Rhapsody #2 came up. I'd say he gets the virtuoso technical stuff pretty much ok, and knows the first part should sound sort of sad, the second part sort of whimsical and ecstatic, but beyond that absolutely NO nuance or sense of poetry, there's nothing Hungarian or gypsy-sounding about it. Hungarian classical music, particularly Liszt's, has this "east-meets-west" quality to it. It fuses a folk music ethos and vitality and intense emotion with urbanity and sophistication. And a sense of spirituality suffusing it all. Hayato seem to think like the Tom and Jerry cartoon featured in the video (whether he or somebody else put that there). It takes more than technique and the intelligence to learn blizzards of notes to make art or music. Sometimes young artists are described as having an "old soul', particularly when they can identify with, or at least connect with, the darker introspective music like late Schubert. The recent Chopin and Leeds prizewinner Mr. Lu (forgot his first name) is like this. He's first rate. Hayato is like a diametrically opposed personality, a very "new soul." The musicianship is a complicated matter, but he could at least get a haircut. Nobody wants to see any "artist personality" affectations like this. All Chopin competition winners btw have had the same haircut: plain neat and trim. Keep the focus on the music.
Topic: 18th International Chopin Competition And Discussion