Jon Sakata: Piano Man

Her shaking fingers poke at the black and white keys as she looks hesitantly up at the score of Mozart’s 27th piano concerto in C Major. She’s a new student, meeting her new teacher, Jon Sakata, for the first time. Sakata stops her, and she immediately begins to bite her chipped nails.

“My old teacher used to say that one of the most valuable qualities of musicians is doubt,” he says in his deep, kind voice. “How one embraces and works with doubt is what makes the musician who he or she is.” Sakata directs her attention back to the piano. Her once shaking fingers now run smoothly across the piano keys. Sakata smiles, pats her on her back and continues his lesson.

Sakata, a world renowned concert pianist and instructor of piano, pianoforte, harpsichord, theory and composition at Exeter began his teaching career at the New England Conservatory (NEC) in Boston as a part time instructor.

On his birthday in 1993, Sakata was invited to take a chair position at NEC, as he was starting his Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) program there. On that same day, he was offered an interview to teach piano at Phillips Exeter Academy. He completed the interview and then accepted the offer to teach at the boarding school.

Since Sakata was handling both a concert career, which involved part time teaching at NEC, and teaching at Exeter at the same time, he was struggling to fit all of the responsibilities that the jobs called for into his tight schedule.

“It was difficult to juggle both the concert career and the students here at Exeter,” Sakata said. “I made a very difficult decision between whether I was going to remain teaching here or stay at the NEC. I found the students here much more interesting.”

“It’s about how we learn together. I’m learning myself too. It’s like we’re climbing Mount Everest together. No humiliation on the way; we’re doing this together as we climb this mountain.”

For Sakata, the students here, unlike most students at NEC, were multi-dimensional; they were passionate about subjects beyond simply reading and playing notes. These subjects, including history, philosophy, culture, languages and more, were what inspired Sakata to teach Exonians how to understand what music truly is.

“All the teachers I have had, as different as they were, were all common in the fact that they all had a belief system that to understand music you have to study philosophy and use history and all kinds of cultures and languages,” Sakata said. “And this was just not happening at NEC; it was just plain music. So it was more one-dimensional.”

Therefore, not only was Sakata able to teach his Exeter students how to read the notes and press the black and white piano keys, he was able to communicate with them the essence behind music. Lower Roger Shen, one of Sakata’s piano students, has found Sakata’s advice quite profound.

“Through his teachings, I was able to discover for myself just how much communication and exchanging of emotion and feelings music allows for,” Shen said. “Because I learn things like this, I always value advice Sakata give me.”

Similarly, senior Scott Hermenau—one of Sakata’s composition students—commented on the impact that Sakata has had on him personally. “Dr. Sakata is approximately 50 percent of my Exeter experience. My lessons with him have helped me immensely and simply,” Hermenau said. “He has not only coexisted with me as a teacher and advisor, but as a collaborator and friend. Dr. Sakata has been immensely supportive of my ideas and the ideas of many others and instrumental in their manifestation.”

In fact, one of Sakata’s beliefs was that there is no such thing as teaching. In his view, the “teacher” and “student” both learn from each other.

“I’m not teaching a student what they should know [or] what they should do,” he said. “I’m certainly not telling a student. It’s about how we learn together. I’m learning myself too. It’s like we’re climbing Mount Everest together. No humiliation on the way; we’re doing this together as we climb this mountain.”

With this idea of learning together in mind, Sakata advises a club named Democracy of Sound (DoS), of which Hermenau is a co-head along with seniors Emily Lemmerman and Hannah Sessler. When it was first established, the goal of the club, according to Dr. Sakata, was to discuss how “people energized each other’s creativity through any and all kinds of forms of music making.”

However, the group has evolved the goal of the club, which now encompasses a broader range of students. “This year, [the club] has mutated into becoming a full-fledged design collective, where it’s no longer just musicians or sound-artists coming together but also visual artists, computer programmers, engineers and fabricators,” Sakata added. “It’s creating a space for them and us to work together.”

In addition to teaching students, or “learning together,” as Sakata would call it, and advising DoS, Sakata participates in other activities at Exeter. For example, Sakata collaborated with other faculty to make up the panel for the Strategic Planning meetings. He also contributed to the “Celebrating the Bard’s 450th Birthday” Shakespeare celebration in the Academy Library.

To all of these collaborations, Sakata has brought the same attitude as he brings to teaching his students. Lauren O’Neal, director and curator of the Lamont Gallery, commented on Sakata’s work in these activities, saying that “in projects such as the Shakespeare celebration in the Academy Library, he has united people across campus in collaboration and creative expression.”

When students and faculty see Sakata on the Exeter pathways, many do not recognize how renowned a performing artist he is. He and his wife, Jung Mi Lee, according to the “Bio of Jung Mi Lee and Jon Sakata,” have performed in numerous tours and have been featured in many conferences including one in 2000, when “Lee and Sakata participated in an unprecedented and widely heralded tour of six of the most prominent institutions in the People’s Republic of China (conservatories of Beijing Central, Shanghai, China National, Xi’an, Wuhan and Tsinghua University) in music of Lei Liang.”

Despite his successes and titles, he is able to remain humble, never boasting about himself. When asked what Sakata would write in an article about himself, he replied, “If I were to complete an article about myself, I would like to include a list names of people who I am thankful for. There wouldn’t be a sentence, but rather a list of names, with the first being my wife and performing partner Ms. Lee and the last also being Ms. Lee.”