Starting with the highest rank in the 19th Japan Classical Music Contest, Toda has also earned top rank in two international and three national competitions. He has been giving solo recitals since his second year at high school. Looking at his numerous accolades, you would think it inevitable that he is a future pianist in the making, but Toda says, “Of course I will be a pianist, but I am also thinking about being a mathematician. Since entering university I was attracted by the interesting side of mathematics.” He started practicing the piano at four. He entered junior high school with a reputation for volleyball and practiced volleyball every morning and evening, eventually finishing runner-up in the national tournament. During this time, he says, “Piano was nothing more than a hobby.”

Because he went to a single-sex school, there were few opportunities to accompany a chorus or perform in front of an audience, so his teacher became worried that he might give up the piano, and therefore invited him to hold a solo recital. It was from this time that he started to practice more seriously.

He held his first solo recital in the summer of his second year of high school. He was in America and the following day his talent was recognized when a professor from the Manhattan School of Music told him that he should become a pianist in the future. “That was the moment that I became determined to be a pianist.”

From then on he was glued to his piano and practiced persistently. In the winter of that year he returned to the States and performed again in front of the same professor, who exclaimed in amazement that Toda was a completely different performer from before. Toda reflects, “Back then my life was centered on the piano.” After leaving high school, he thought he could continue the piano without attending a music college, so he applied to a mainstream university. He chose Chuo University's Faculty of Science and Engineering due to its close proximity to his home which could guarantee him time for practice. He selected the Mathematics Department because, “I thought the lab work wouldn't take up as much time as physics or chemistry.”

After entering university he was as much obsessed with math as he was the piano. “I started studying math seriously after entering university and grew deeply interested in it. I was especially taken in by the appeal of algebra.”

Algebra is one branch of mathematics. “You need one page of notes to work out one line of algebra in a textbook. Those difficult problems gave me a feeling of satisfaction,” he says with a sparkle in his eye. That expression doesn't change when he talks about the piano.

He told me that in modern music compositions mathematics is used in the form of graphs and computers, and that many mathematic professors are music lovers.

After graduating he will enter Chuo University's graduate school. He had no second thoughts about continuing on to graduate school and strongly insists, “I want to put 100% into both the piano and mathematics.” At the moment he never misses a day of piano practice. His current lifestyle of piano and study can be put down to pursing his unique goal of being a pianist and mathematician, on a daily basis.

(Komuro)