Taka Kigawa

Taka Kigawa is a New York City based Japanese pianist. In 1990, he won the first prize for piano playing in the Japan Music Society competition.

The New York Times declared him a "gifted and daring pianist", going on to praise his 2014 performance of the complete works of Pierre Boulezs, stating "The gentleness of so much of the music, even its coziness, was his decision as much as a consequence of the space: an approach to this famously — even infamously — exacting music that valued warmth and variety of texture, with a tone less stark and white than what many musicians bring to it." ; the Times was more critical of his 2012 performance of Bach's The Art of Fugue, stating "the main reason to play Bach on the piano, instead of the harpsichord, is to exploit fully the modern instrument’s range of dynamics and color, which Mr. Kigawa didn’t do, resulting in a rather one-dimensional sound that built in intensity only at the very end.". The New Yorker considers Kigawa "the master of the downtown piano scene".