Overview: Trio Watanabe in Japan (May 14th through 21st)
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Thank you to the organizers, presenters, venues who were instrumental in this mini-tour coming to be. It was a wonderful adventure for me, a spiritually enriching and emotionally rewarding. Here is a brief rundown of how the week went: 13th - arrive in Tokyo. Eat shabushabu to fuel the coming week of performance and travel. For those of you who don't know, shabushabu is the name of the sound raw strips of meat make when you briefly dip it in boiling broth before munching it down. Add ramen noodles to the broth after consuming all the meat and other vegetables and you are set.
14th - Concert at SuperDeluxe in Roppongi. Many friends and family came to this hip club, a venue more accustomed to presenting dj parties and rock bands than to a violin, harp and flute trio. My mother had so many classmates in the audience wanting to visit with her, she had trouble returning to the dressing room during the intermission.
15th - travel to Sado and return "home" to Kodo Village. It's as if I'd never left...
16th - school performances: Fukaura elementary, Hamochi high school and Ogi middle school. Some kids were quiet, some kids were talking, some were very attentive, while others were not... They were all a wonderful audience however. Who knows what sticks in their minds and subconscious? I wonder what effect did and will the music have on these kids years from now?
17th - rehearsal, barbeque with friends, enjoy the painfully beautiful Sado...
18th - performance at Hananoki. A beautiful old wooden building, lovingly maintained. The harp sounds especially sonorous in the room. Intimate show with lots of old friends in the audience. I make my parents improvise for the encore.
19th - travel to Tokyo. Performance at the jazz spot "In F" with pianist Kuroda Kyoko, tabla player Yoshimi Masaki and special guest Isso Yukihiro, the great Noh Kan player. After the show is over, Isso san and I sight read Teleman and Bach duets on the flutes.
I returned to the US but went directly up to Montreal to record and perform with my friend Patrick Graham. The music was fun and interesting, but meeting his son Hibiki left a stronger impression. At eleven years old, he had many Kodo songs memorized- some very involved, very long, through composed pieces. We got into an argument about the rhythm to one song and after we checked a DVD, it turns out he won.
