Sankyoku Music

Classical Japanese Chamber Music

Shakuhachi performed in ensemble with
Koto, Shamisen, Kyoku & Voice

Chikanobu Yoshu - 1894

ELIZABETH FALCONER earned a masters licence from the Sawai Koto School in Japan where she studied under Utayumi Nagane, Kazue Sawai and Tadao Sawai from 1979 to 1990. She currently resids and teaches koto in Seattle, WA.

K6a. ISSHIN - EMERGING
Traditional & modern compositions for 13-, 17- and 20-string koto. Includes the works of Tadao Sawai, Katsutoshi Nagasawa, Miki Minoru, Robin Williamson, Shinichi Yuize and an original composition by Ms. Falconer.

SAWAKO FUKUHARA began studying koto as a child with her aunt Misuyo Mizushima. She was trained as a classical koto playet until completion of the special course for traditional Japanese musicians sponsored by NHK. In 2005, she was received the Kyoto Cultural Promotion award for her work at the Udesaki School. Adept at playing both traditional and modern compostions, Sawako performs regularly with John Kaizan Neptune.

K9a [I]
NAGAREGUMO
with
John Kaizan Neptune - shakuhachi
Junko Chiba - violin

Original compositions for shakuhachi, koto & violin by John Kaizain Neptune, Tadao Sawai & Keigo Fujii.

1. Tori no Youni (Like a Bird) - by Tadao Sawai
2. Hotaru (Firefly) - by Tadao Sawai
* 3. Unfolding - by John Kaizan Neptune
4. Flowing Clouds - by John Kaizan Neptune
5. Duo Concertante - by Keigo Fujii

Produced by John Kaizan Neptune.
Recorded March 5-6, 2006.

* Neptune & Fukuhara performing Unfolding
is also available on DVD video.
Unfolding DVD

YOKO GATES (1944-1989) was born in Hamamatsu, Japan and began studying koto at the age of five. She graduated from the Tokyo University of Arts and received the Japan National Broadcasting Co. (NHK) Young Artists award for the performance of traditional music. In 1969, she married Allen Gates and moved to the United States, where she lived the rest of her life until her untimely death in 1989. She gave her debut recital in Carnegie Hall (NYC) in 1984 and performed again in 1986. Yoko Ito Gates performed widely throughout the U.S. and Canada and taught at the University of Washington, San Francisco State Uninversity, San Diego State University, Lewis & Clark College, The Center for World Music and the American Society for Eastern Arts. She founded the Japanese Music group Rei In Kai (Zero Sound) in Berkeley, CA to promote the study and performance of Japanese music.

K8a. YOKO ITO GATES

Yoko Ito Gates was a great performer, and for those who knew her closely, a wonderful teacher. This 2-CD memorial collection of her recordings includes live performances from the 1970's and 1980's. Showing the range of her interests and abilities, it features Yoko playing koto, shamisen and singing.

The earliest koto music on this CD is represented by Yatsuhashi Kengyo's Hachidan.

Classical sankyoku pieces are accompanied by two of the greatest shakuhachi players of the post-WWII era. Araki Kodo V performs on Zangetsu and Living National Treasure Aoki Reibo on Konkai.

Akikaze no kyoku is from the late classical period telling the story of an ancient Chinese emperor's fateful love for the beautiful Yang Kwei Fei.

Kobai (composed ca. 1700) is a short song from the Taisho period.

The remaining four pieces show Yoko's interest in contemporary music. One koto solo, one recent piece for koto and violin, another koto solo commissioned by Yoko from the modern composer Thomas Svoboda, and finally a haunting duet, Kazuko, with Pharoah Sanders on saxophone.

Disk 1
1. Zangetsu - Fading Moon
with Araki Kodo V, shakuhachi
2. Kobai - Red Plum Blossoms
3. Hachidan - Etude in Eight Steps
4. Akikaze no Kyoku - Autumn Wind
5. Mittsu no Dansho - Three Fragments

Disk 2
6. Konkai - Crying of Foxes
with Aoki Reibo, shakuhachi
Kamijo Taeko, koto
7. Aki - Autumn
8. Mittsu no Yokyoku - Three Nocturnes
with Masaoki Inoue, violin
9. Kazuko - Peace Child
with Pharoah Sanders, tenor saxophone
Paul Arslanian, harmonium & wind chimes

Produced by Robin Hartshorne, co-director of Rei in Kai.
Dedicated to Yoko's daughter Joemy Ito-Gates.

MASAYO ISHIGURE began playing the koto and jiuta shamisen at the age of five in Gifu, Japan. After initial studies with Tadao and Kazue Sawai, she became a special research student in 1986 at the Sawai Koto Academy of Music. The aim of the academy was to shed new light on koto music by incorporating everything from Bach to jazz and thus change the koto from being thought of only as a traditional Japanese instrument into an instrument of universal expressiveness. Later Masayo Ishigure became one of a small group of virtuoso disciples of the Sawais and successfully completed the 33rd Ikusei-kai program sponsored by NHK to foster and train aspiring artists in Japanese music. In 1988 Ms. Ishigure received a degree in Japanese Traditional Music at Takasaki Junior Arts College with a concentration in koto and shamisen. Ms. Ishigure began teaching koto and shamisen in the music department of Wesleyan University (CT) as an artist in residence where she formed the Wesleyan Koto Ensemble. She also offers private lessons as the only Sawai Koto Academy instructor in the New York metropolitan area.

S-L2d. EAST WIND ENSEMBLE
Theme music from Hayao Miyazaki's movies perfomed on shakuhachi and koto.

K2a. GRACE - MIYABI
Classical sankyoku with Marco Lienhard on shakuhachi.

REIKO KIMURA was born in Nagano prefecture to a koto–playing mother, and started koto lessons at the age of six. Lessons in piano and solfege followed soon after. In 1971 she entered the Seiha Academy of Music in Tokyo, where she studied classical koto of the Ikuta school and jiuta shamisen. On graduation she continued her studies at the training course for performers of Japanese music established by NHK (Japan's public broadcasting network). In 1977 she joined Pro Musica Nipponia, and started her studies of the nijugen. She was awarded first prize at the 1979 Pan Musique Contemporary Music Contest. Her fourth solo recital, an all–Miki program, was awarded the 1994 Arts Festival Award for most outstanding musician. Leaving Pro Musica Nipponia in 1997, she became a soloist with Miki's Orchestra in Asia.

K13a. MUSIC FOR KOTO

1. Midare
2. Shikyoku Ichiban (Poème I pour shakuhachi et koto)
3. Rhapsody for twenty-string koto solo
4. Higashi kara (From the East)
5. Ame no Uta (A Poem of the Rain)

SHIRLEY KAZUYO MURAMOTO is director of the MURASAKI ENSEMBLE and a Yonsei or 4th generation American of Japanese descent, born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. The art of the koto was passed down to her by her mother, who played as a young girl in the American relocation camps of World War II. Shirley has studied in Japan and received many awards for her distinguished playing. Shirley is the producer of a remarkable new video Hidden Legacy: Japanese Traditional Performing Arts in the World War II Internment Camps.

K1f. KOTO OYAKO DON with Brian Mitsuhiro Wong
Contemporary, jazz & classical koto duos and solos.

TADAO SAWAI was born in Aichi Prefecture in 1937. His father was a shakuhachi performer and at around the age of 10 Sawai began to study the koto. In 1959 he was chosen by the Japanese national broadcasting company NHK as the best new performer, and from that time forward he began to be active as a performer and composer of contemporary music.

In 1960. he graduated from the traditional music department of Tokyo National university of Fine Arts and Music. He has performed widely throughout Japan and the world and his compositions are among the most widely performed in the koto world.

Sawai Tadao, master of the Japanese koto, founder of the Sawai Koto School, prolific composer, teacher, and visionary leader in the world of Japanese music, died on April 1, 1997 at the age of 59.

Sawai's Genius Revitalized Modern Koto
By Elizabeth Falconer

"Sawai's most recent recordings include a CD of his works entitled "Sanka" (Song of Praise) on the Kyoto Records label (KYCH-2010) with English and Japanese liner notes and, just out this spring, "Koto Music: Tadao Sawai Plays Michio Miyagi," a Playasound production that includes liner notes in English, French and Japanese (PS 65180). These are both gems, contemporary classical koto music at its finest, and we are lucky to have them available. "

K7a. TADAO SAWAI PLAYS MICHIO MIYAGI [I]

One of Japan's most celebrated koto performers honors the instrument's most renown composer.

1. Tegoto (First Movement - Tegotofu)
2. Tegoto (Second Movement - Kumiuta)
3. Tegoto (Third Movement - Rinzetsu)
4. Mizu no Hentai
5. Seoto
6. Onoe no Matsu