Actor Katsunori Takahashi appeared on Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's long-running talk show "Tetsuko's Room" (TV Asahi) on November 27th. He talked about his recent interest in playing the cello and the comforting aspects of his beloved cat.
Violinist Takashima Chisako is a junior at Aoyama Gakuin University. She invited me to join the concert. When she suddenly asked me what my favorite instrument was, I mentioned trumpet, guitar, and piano, to which she replied, "Cello, oboe, or horn." "I've always loved the cello. I got into it because of Yo-Yo Ma," she says. When I actually played it, the cello-like sound only came out occasionally. "It sometimes sounds like a cello, and I was so happy," she says, instantly realizing the depth of the instrument. "It doesn't have frets, so you can't play something like that unless you've been doing it since you were a child," she complains.
This year, she played "Libertango" at the Nippon Budokan (Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo). "It feels great when it goes really well, but it's difficult. With Libertango, I couldn't get that sexy Latin feel, so it ended up sounding like a theme song for a superhero or a sentai show," she said with a laugh. Still, she loves the cello, and says she plays it as soon as she wakes up or whenever she has a little free time.
Playing the cello and listening to classical music also seems to have a positive effect on her acting, as she says, "It makes me think again about many things, such as the flow of emotions when acting, the depth and intensity of my emotions, my own life, and the kind of life I'm living."
It seems that her latest source of relaxation is spending time with her beloved cats. She has always had dogs since she was a child, so she has always been a dog person, but after her dog passed away, she was given a pair of cats, a brother and sister, who were born in the home of actress Kuroki Hitomi. She says that cats "have emotions, are quiet and easy to keep." "Maybe they're just good at keeping them, because they were born in Kuroki Hitomi's home," she said.
