Monthly Archives: May 2014
Traditional Japanese Music
Last Saturday, May 24 at Chroma Gallery
Beautiful new additions
Adding more color and beauty is central to our purpose. As both artists and gallery owners, Robin and Simmon are working help the revitalization of the SOFA district. Pictured is one of the new planter boxes they constructed for the front of Chroma. Plants include sunflowers, pelargoniums and herbs. Coming soon, nasturtiums.
Traditional Japanese Ensemble Music
with Elliot Kallen: shakuhachi and Naoko: koto, shamisen, and voice
Saturday, May 24 from 3:45 to 4:45 in the Chroma Gallery. FREE.
Part of the Matsuri Festival which takes place next door in Julliard Park from 10am to 5pm.
Experience the fascinating songs and music of Japan’s Edo Period (1605-1868) and beyond featuring traditional flute and strings.
A Question and Answer segment will follow the performance.
About the performers:
Elliot Kallen plays the shakuhachi, a traditional, end-blown bamboo flute from Japan. He is part of a lineage that has its roots in the music of the Komuso, the itinerant Zen monks who used the shakuhachi as a tool for meditation during Japan’s Edo Period (1605-1865). Elliot studies with David Kansuke Wheeler of Boulder, Colorado and also with Junsuke Kawase III, the third generation head of the Chikuyusha shakuhachi school in Tokyo. In 2006, Elliot was honored to be chosen to perform for Kawase-sensei’s 70th birthday celebration at the National Theater in Tokyo. Elliot is also a founding member of Sebastopol’s Ten Ten Taiko and performs, teaches, and lectures about Japanese classical music regularly throughout the Bay Area and beyond.
Naoko has been playing the koto since she was six years old. She was taught by Koji Kikuhara who was a highly ranked student of National Living Treasure Hatsuko Kikuhara. In 1987, she was awarded her teaching and performance credentials from the Todo Music Association, a school with more than 100 years of history. She studied classical singing with Ichijuro Kiyomoto and Fujima style dance with Monjuro Fujima from 1979 to 1981. Naoko plays Nogawa Style jiuta shamisen and Ikuta style koto and has been performing throughout the United States since 1994.
