Kenji Miura (Japan)

The Fondation Clavarte first began helping me financially in April 2016. Through the wonderful generosity of Kristina Steinegger and her colleagues, we, young artists, are able to concentrate better on their studies. Before I started receiving their financial help, I was barely scraping by. Being a student living alone in Berlin, without a German passport or let alone an EU passport is extremely difficult. If you can receive help from your family- that’s great. If that is not an option like in my instance, you will work a lot of hours just to meet your living costs every month. I kept multiple jobs and there were times when I worked one job from 10:00 til 18:00, went straight to my next job and worked from 19:00 until 22:00. That is a 12 hour day- something a young and aspiring student should not have to do. All the work affected my practice of course, since I barely had the time or energy to practice so many hours in a day.

Since meeting Kristina and her foundation, I have been able to cut down my work hours which led to much more and efficient practice, which leads to faster improvement which would ultimately lead to a better career. Within the last year and a half, I have won 2 prizes; The Steinway Förderpreis 2017 and the 1st prize at the International Shigeru Kawai Piano Competition 2017 and have been lucky enough to perform all around the world.

All that would not have been possible if not for Kristina and Fondation Clavarte so I would like to thank them from the bottom of my heart and encourage all students in difficult situations to take this amazing opportunity!

Kenji Miura

www.kenjimiura.com