Between September 24 and October 21, I’ll join my mentor Ralph Samuelson for concerts in Japan – at a Buddhist temple and National Heritage site in Yokohama, at a shrine near Mount Fuji surrounded by 1200-year-old cedars, at a gallery in Sumida, and on a boat in Kyoto. We also have two concerts in Iwate prefecture, which was hit hard by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. This is thanks to Issui Minegishi, our friend and colleague who is a master of the ichigenkin, or one-string koto. Our program, 音故知新 one breath, one note, one string: new and traditional music for shakuhachi and ichigenkin, includes my piece 秋巡り来て Aki Meguri Kite “Autumn Comes Round Again” , with poetry from Voices from Japan, written in response to the 2011 earthquake and tsunami and originally published in the Asahi Shinbun.
