Yoshihisa "Yoshi" Nishimura, a piano technician whose touch with the tuning and mechanism of pianos rivaled the artistry of the many great pianists who performed on them, died Oct. 18 of complications from cancer. He was 71.
Nishimura owned Mozart Music House, a piano dealership in Iwilei that fed the state’s large population of pianists — Hawaii has the highest rate of piano teachers per capita in the nation. But it was as a piano technician that he gained international respect and renown rare for someone whose work was done before a concert even began.
Old newspaper articles reflect that regard: "A true master" is how the great Misha Dichter described his work. "Wonderful," said Jose Feghali, gold medalist of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. "Genius" was the description given by Joseph Bloch, a teacher at the Juilliard School, which offered Nishimura the post of piano technician. He turned that offer down because he wanted to stay in Hawaii, which benefited greatly from his expertise.
Nishimura was the piano technician for the Honolulu Symphony and the Music Department at the University of Hawaii for more than 30 years. Laurence Paxton, chairman of the Music Department, said he was venerated by piano students for his gentle good humor as well as his knowledge about pianos.
"He’s sort of a legend in the department," Paxton said. "He’s was beloved by students, faculty and staff. … He would come up to any problem with any of our pianos in a second."
Paxton said the regard that piano students have for Nishimura was reflected in their eagerness to perform at his funeral service, which will be Saturday at Kawaiaha‘o Church.
"I got the students to sign up in five minutes," he said. "And I had students asking if they could do more. The chorus wanted to sing."
As a technician, Nishimura was also involved in the recent renovation of UH’s concert grand pianos, installing new strings, hammers and action. His work was on display earlier this month in a concert by Cliburn gold medalist Haochen Zhang, who produced everything from thundering arpeggios to the most delicate melodies on the instrument.
"The piano is for the pianist the same as a paintbrush is for the painter," Nishimura once said.
He was involved in selecting one of the more prominent pianos on Oahu, traveling to Vienna to choose Hawaii Public Radio’s Bōsendorfer. He also tuned and maintained Queen Liliuokalani’s piano at Washington Place, along with dozens of privately owned instruments around the islands.
A painstaking perfectionist who would spend four or five hours on a piano and work right up to the moment when the audience entered the hall, Nishimura was often invited overseas to maintain pianos for special performances. He formed an especially close relationship with the great Russian pianist and conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy, who would fly Nishimura to Switzerland to work on his personal instruments.
Ashkenazy would later become chief judge of the Hong Kong International Piano Competition, a relatively new event on the competitive piano circuit, and put Nishimura in charge of maintaining the pianos for the event. Nishimura enjoyed telling stories of how surprised and delighted young pianists would be at the responsiveness of the pianos he prepared for them. Established performers would look forward to coming to Hawaii to play the pianos at Mozart Music House and at concerts for which he prepared the instruments.
Nishimura was born near Hiroshima, Japan, and barely missed the atomic bomb attack on the city. He said his family was planning to go into the city that day, but his father was sick. He studied piano maintenance with Yamaha in Japan before coming to Hawaii in 1970. He did not know how to play piano.
Nishimura is survived by wife Norie, son Alan, daughters Takae and Joyce, and three grandchildren. Visitation will be at 3 p.m. Saturday, with service at 4 p.m. Kawaiaha‘o Church is at 957 Punchbowl St.
