In 1995, at age seven, Tsujii won the first prize at the All Japan Music of Blind Students by the Tokyo Helen Keller Association.

In October 2005, he reached the semifinal and received the Critics’ Award at the 15th International Frédéric Chopin Piano Competition held in Warsaw, Poland.

[2] In April 2007, Tsujii entered Ueno Gakuen University majoring in music performance in piano, graduating in March 2011.

[3] Tsujii competed in the 2009 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and tied for the gold medal with Haochen Zhang.

Tsujii was one of the competitors prominently featured in the Peter Rosen documentary film about the 2009 Van Cliburn competition, A Surprise in Texas, which was first broadcast on PBS TV in 2010.

[10] A 2014 film Touching the Sound, also by Peter Rosen, documents Tsujii's life from birth to his 2011 Carnegie Hall debut, including footage of his visit to the region in Japan that suffered the devastating aftermath of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.

A team of pianists records scores along with specific codes and instructions written by composers, which Tsujii listens to and practices until he learns and perfects each piece.

"[14] In 2017, a reporter from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Monique Schafter, asked Tsujii "How do you stay in time when you can't see the conductor?"

[18] Following is a list of his CDs and DVDs, most recent first: Tsujii has performed with numerous orchestras under the baton of many conductors, both in Japan and abroad.

[27] In 2016, Tsujii created and performed the background music for a series of three animation of Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga scrolls produced by Studio Ghibli for Marubeni Corporation.

[28] Tsujii's 2011 performance of his own composition, "Elegy for the Victims of the Tsunami of March 11, 2011 in Japan", is widely viewed on the Internet.

[29] At the 2020 Summer Paralympics opening ceremony, a recording of a composition by Tsujii ("House of Wind") was played while the flag of Japan was carried on stage.

[32] In the wake of Japan's 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Tsujii made numerous contributions to the restoration efforts.

He was featured in an original short film "Lights of Japan" shown at the World Economics Summit in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2012.

[36] In addition to his earthquake relief effort, Tsujii frequently performs benefit concerts, such as for children's hospitals,[37] the Japanese Red Cross[38][39] and the disabled.

[40] In the summer of 2012, Tsujii contributed to a one-million rubles donation from the proceeds of an acclaimed concert, in which he performed on July 8 with conductor Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, to the victims of a flood in Kuban that occurred the night before.

"[43] In Taiwan on April 15, 2019, Tsujii visited the Taichung Hui Ming School for the Blind at the invitation of the TSMC Culture and Education Foundation, where he performed and spoke to the students, encouraging them to fulfill their potentials.

[44] On March 11, 2021, the 10th anniversary of Japan's 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Tsujii performed in a special concert at Nippon Budokan Hall in Tokyo "to bring together those affected by the disasters and those who have offered support for reconstruction.

"[46] In a published eulogy for pianist Van Cliburn, Tsujii wrote: "I heard about his illness and visited him at his home on February 2nd of this year [2013].

Our conversation went from advice on playing techniques, to the importance of telling more people about the beauty of classical music, a very wide range of things; it was sprinkled with jokes and stories, and he was very happy.

"[49][50] 2009 Van Cliburn Competition Juror Richard Dyer, a chief music critic for The Boston Globe, said, "Very seldom do I close my notebook and just give myself over to it, and he made that necessary.

"[51] 2009 Van Cliburn Competition Juror Michel Béroff, an award-winning internationally known pianist, told the Japanese monthly piano magazine Chopin,[52] "The special thing about his performance is his sound.

"[53] In the documentary A Surprise in Texas, Menahem Pressler, Cliburn juror and an eminent pianist, says: "I have the utmost admiration for [Tsujii].

Scott Cantrell in his review of the 2009 Van Cliburn competition for The Dallas Morning News wrote that "It's almost beyond imagining that he has learned scores as formidable as Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto and Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata by ear…Through all three rounds, he played with unfailing assurance, and his unforced, utterly natural Chopin E-Minor Piano Concerto was an oasis of loveliness.

"[54][55] John Giordano, music director and conductor of Corpus Christi Symphony Orchestra who was jury chairman for the Cliburn competition, said in 2010, "He’s amazing.

"[56] In an interview after the November 2011 Carnegie Hall debut recital of Tsujii, Van Cliburn said on TV Asahi, "What a thrill to hear this brilliant, very gifted, fabulous pianist.

"[57] In a 2014 review in The Daily Telegraph, David Fanning wrote, "...Nobuyuki Tsujii’s performance of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No.

"[58] On Tsujii's debut performance with the Munich Philharmonic on November 4, 2015, the Münchner Merkur wrote "At first he seems a little uncertain, but as soon as he sits down at the piano, he is like a different person.

"[63] In a 2022 concert review, Ivan Hewett of the U.K. newspaper The Daily Telegraph wrote: "Sceptics might suggest that both Tsujii’s adoring fans and those usually hardened critics have been seduced by the overall 'miracle' and aren’t really listening to the music-making.

He’s a truly exciting musician, blessed with rare musical inventiveness and insight, which may also stem from the fact that he perceives the world differently.