Tokyo Chigakukai: Traditional Japanese Music Performance

The Tokyo Chigakukai 2006 East Coast Tour is New England’s first introduction to the music of the Kikusuji style of jiuta-sokyoku, classical Japanese music for voice, koto, kokyu and shamisen. Repertoire for the tour will span music from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries and highlight the intimate connection of jiuta-sokyoku and the development of Japanese literature. In addition to formal concerts, the Tokyo Chigakukai will present a workshop earlier in the afternoon for students in music and East Asian studies.

Concert highlights include a performance of koto kumiuta, the first systematized collection of music for voice and koto created by Yatsuhashi Kengyo beginning in 1648, and a focus on the kokyu, a three-stringed bowed instrument rarely heard today. American performances of classical Japanese music often concentrate on contemporary pieces, so the tour provides a rare opportunity to hear the early repertoire, and to follow the genre’s development over four centuries. Jiuta-sokyoku has often been inspired by Japanese literature, beginning with the Manyoshu, Heian period waka anthologies and The Tale of Genji, and the music performed will highlight this intimate relationship.

The Tokyo Chigakukai 2006 East Coast Tour is made possible by a grant from the Todo Music Association.