Kabuki and Zen: The Music of Japan 2016.10.05

Non-CAS Event
Wednesday, October 5, 2016, 6:30 - 8:00 p.m.
Highland City Club, 885 Arapahoe Ave, Boulder, Colorado, 80302, United States

Join us for an evening of Japanese music and history curated and hosted by City Club Member Jim Bailey! David Wheeler and John Lytton will take us on a musical journey through the sounds and history of three Japanese instruments: shamisen, ko-tsuzumi, and shakuhachi.

Shamisen: After arriving from Taiwan and Okinawa in the mid 16th century, this three string lute with leather heads (a la the banjo) quickly took the Japanese music world by storm. It’s styles were adopted by and evolved with the two major theater genres of the Edo period, Kabuki and Bunraku, and it became the central instrument of Japanese folk, entertainment and high art music. The shamisen continues to flourish today in it’s classical traditions, and has also found a new audience for modern music ranging from rock, to jazz to the avant-garde.

Ko-tsuzumi: In Japan for over a millennium, this hand drum has evolved in both design and playing style, along with the theater traditions of Noh and Kabuki which it accompanies. The ko-tsuzumi’s iconic sound is definitive of Japanese percussion music. Tasajo Mochizuki has been performing the shamisen and the ko-tsuzumi, the shamisen, and singing Nagauta music in Tokyo for over thirty years.

For more information, visit the event page here.