Tetsuya Komuro’s Piano Which Gave Birth to Numerous Masterpieces is Up for Sale!

The legendary piano, whose whereabouts have been unknown, seems to be up for sale behind the scenes, and there is a lot of interest in who will buy it,” says a collector who collects musical instruments from around the world.

“Who is going to buy it?” said a collector who collects musical instruments from around the world. The legendary piano is said to be one of only two in the world owned by Tetsuya Komuro, 63.

It is a grand piano made by layering several layers of a single board. It has a futuristic form reminiscent of a spaceship, and was even introduced as a “world-class instrument” in an illustrated book on the history of pianos published in England in 1995. At first, it was used by TM NETWORK (“TMN”) as a small room piano on their national tour. Yamaha made use of the latest technology and spent about a year specially manufacturing the piano so that Mr. Komuro could play it during his national tour with TM NETWORK (TMN).

One of the specially ordered pianos was owned by Yamaha, and the other was used by Komuro. According to Yamaha’s public relations department, the piano was manufactured in ’91, and the price is unknown. The existence of the piano was revealed in a May 2005 broadcast of “Kaiun! Nandemo Kanteidan” (TV Tokyo) in May 2005. The piano was purchased from Yamaha for approximately 200 million yen.

I heard that the piano was made by Yamaha for about 200 million yen, but the value on the program was 40 million yen. However, it is difficult to put a price on this kind of product, and the appraisers praised it highly, saying, ‘In a sense, it is priceless. This is because this piano has produced numerous million-sellers.

In the midst of the Komuro boom that came the following year after the breakup of TMN in 1994, the DEPARTURES and other million-sellers with “globe,” as well as songs by Namie Amuro (44) and Tomomi Hanahara (47), which created record-breaking hits and created an era. For that reason, it has been considered a collector’s item that collectors would pay any price for.

In fact, Komuro had already given up the piano.

A source close to Komuro confides:

When he was on ‘Nandemo Kanteidan,’ he had royalty income of nearly 200 million yen a year for a while, but he was spending 30 million to 40 million yen a month. However, he and his then-wife, KEIKO (49), were spending between 30 and 40 million yen a month, and their finances were on fire.  At one point, the debt had ballooned to nearly 1 billion yen, and Komuro, who owed money to others, sold the piano to a supporter as payment for the debt. Concerned about his financial difficulties, his supporters devised a way to increase his income and planned to establish a music school with Mr. Komuro in the Kanto area.

Mr. Komuro, who was to become honorary principal of the school, even said of his dream, “I want to nurture world-class musicians. Supporters purchased a building to serve as the school building and installed Komuro’s favorite piano in it. They were steadily preparing for the opening of the school, including the construction of a concert hall in the basement. In 2007, during the “Musical Instruments Fair” held at Pacifico Yokohama, a piano was brought in and Mr. Komuro performed on it, but in fact, the piano was not his at that time.

Then, in November 2008, Komuro transferred his music copyrights. In November 2008, Komuro was arrested on suspicion of fraud in connection with the transfer of music copyrights.

Another source said, “With Komuro’s arrest, the idea of establishing a music school disappeared, and the world-famous instrument disappeared from the stage after Komuro played it at a musical instrument fair.”

Last October, it was announced that TMN would resume its activities, and last month Komuro was welcomed as a visiting principal researcher at RIKEN. Now that attention is once again focused on his activities, the whereabouts of the piano has become a topic of conversation among collectors. Through a source, this magazine discovered that the piano was at a vocational school in the Kanto suburbs.

“The owner of the piano asked us to take care of it, and we are still taking good care of it at the school, tuning it and maintaining it. I have heard that there have been offers from various sources to sell the piano. Even now, wealthy Chinese are showing interest in purchasing the piano,” said a school official.

Will the legendary pianos end up in China? When we interviewed the owner of the piano, he told us that There has been talk of selling it.

I have had several offers to sell it, but I have turned them down because they were all for investment or resale. For my part, I would like someone from any country, even Mr. Komuro, for example, to buy this piano who will take good care of it for many years to come.

Who will be the owner of this legendary piano in the future?

From the April 22, 2022 issue of “FRIDAY