ARTS AT TENRI

On Saturday, October 15, 2011, at 7:30 PM, at Tenri Cultural Institute, 43A West 13th Street, ARTS AT TENRI will begin its fifth season of presenting chamber music traditions from both Europe and Japan with a concert featuring Japanese Master YOKO REIKANO KIMURA performing on the Koto and the Shamisen. Ms. Kimura will be joined on this concert by Hikaru Tamaki, cello, and James Nyoraku Schlefer, shakuhachi. The program will feature three outstanding works by Japanese composer Kin'ichi Nakanoshima and American music for Japanese instruments by Lou Harrison, Marty Regan and James Nyoraku Schlefer.

Featuring
Yoko Reikano Kimura, Koto and Shamisen
With
Music by Japanese & American composers

Program
I: Master works of Kinichi Nakanoshima
1 Kagerou no Odori (Mirage Dance) KOTO
2 Sekiheki no Fu (Song of the Red Cliff) KOTO & SHAKUHACHI
3 Shin-Zarashi composed by Fukakusa Kengyo (arr. Kinichi Nakanoshima) KOTO

II: Japan-USA Connection
4 Music of Lou Harrison SHAMISEN & CELLO
- Rhymes with Silver
- Suite for Sangen
5 Maqam (Marty Regan) SHAMISEN
6 Sankyoku No.1 (James Nyoraku Schlefer) KOTO, SHAKUHACHI & CELLO

Yoko Reikano Kimura (Koto, Shamisen) graduated from the Tokyo University of the Arts and Music and continued her studies at the NHK School for Young Professionals and the Institute of Contemporary Music for Traditional Japanese Instruments.  She received the name "Reikano" from Hiroko Nakanoshima VI.  Her main teachers include Kono Kameyama for Yamada school of koto music, Akiko Nishigata for modern Japanese shamisen music, and Senko Yamabiko who is a living national treasure for Kato-bushi shamisen. Kimura has won numerous awards including first prize at the Kenjun Memorial National Koto Competition, the most prestigious prize in Japan. She received the first prize at the Great Wall International Music Competition and the Osaka Chinese Counsel Award. She performed at the Kabuki-za in Tokyo for the play, "Sukeroku" starring Danjuro Ichikawa XII.  Her performances are regularly featured in NHK-FM radio. An enthusiastic supporter of contemporary music, Yoko has premiered new works at the Japan Society for Contemporary Music.  As a frequent collaborator with western musicians, currently she concertized in the US and Japan with her husband, Hikaru Tamaki, the principal cellist of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic Orchestra.  She has traveled extensively, performing in such places as Poland, Switzerland, France, the USA, Lithuania, Korea, China, Israel and Qatar.

Originally from Kyoto, Japan, Hikaru Tamaki, cello, studied with Noboru Kamimura and Peter Seidenberg. Studies in the United States began in 1994 at the Eastman School of Music, where he was named a George Eastman scholar, and continued at Rice University and Northwestern University. He was awarded a bachelor of arts degree from Rice and a master of music degree from Northwestern University, where his teachers were Paul Katz and Hans Jorgen Jensen. Hikaru was a prizewinner in the prestigious All Japan Viva Hall Cello Competition in 2000. Other awards include first prize at the Society of American Musicians Young Artists Competition in Elmhurst, Illinois and the Bach Festival Young Artists Competition in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He is a member of the Japan-based Acadia Piano trio and during visits to Japan each summer, he gives solo, duo or trio recitals.  In 2009, he began collaborations with traditional Japanese musicians in Tokyo and New York.  Now he concertized regularly with his wife, Yoko Reikano Kimura.

James Nyoraku Schlefer is a leading performer and teacher of shakuhachi in New York City. An active composer, Schlefer has written solo and ensemble music for Japanese instruments and combinations of Japanese and Western instruments. His Concerto for Shakuhachi was premiered in NYC at Merkin Concert Hall in 2009, and in 2010, Allan Kozinn of the NY Times called his Duo No. 3 for shakuhachi and koto“…melodically inventive, richly textured.” As a performer Schlefer has appeared at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, Tanglewood, the Metropolitan, Brooklyn and Philadelphia Museums, and has toured internationally in Europe, Asia and South America. His music has also been featured on NPR's All Things Considered. Schlefer received the Dai-Shi-Han (Grand Master's Certificate) in 2001, and in 2007, he received a second Shi-Han license, from Kurahashi Yodo’s Mujuan Dojo in Kyoto. www.nyoraku.com

The Place
Tenri Cultural Institute
43A West 13th Street, New York, NY
(212) 645-2800

Tickets

$25 general, $15 students/seniors