Shamisen Master

Tonight, right after I got out of class, Mari and I went to an informal traditional Japanese music concert. It was one of those things that I found out about b/c I know one of the people involved in organizing it.

It was very fun. They played several different instruments - shamisen (guitar), shakuhachi (flute), and voice - in a variety of different musical styles. Several songs were traditional folk songs, a couple were renditions of geisha songs (from both eras of geisha), and there was even a section devoted to improvisations with the shamisen. It was a fun evening.

The two featured instrumentalists were Baisho Matsumoto and Dr. Yoshi Kitagawa (who is a professor in linguistics here at IU and been taking shamisen lessons from Matsumoto in correspondance). A teacher friend of mine, Molly Adkins Jeon, was the vocalist. Unbeknownst to me, she had studied with Matsumoto quite extensively while she lived in Japan.

The world if full of fascinating people. ^_^