Chicago-born Curtis Patterson has lived in Japan since 1986, dedicating himself to the koto, a traditional Japanese instrument something like the harp. In addition to composing and performing music ...

With a bow to Conductor Leopold Stokowski, a bow to the Philadelphia Orchestra, a bow to the audience in Manhattan’s Philharmonic Hall, stocky Kimio Eto adjusted his formal robes and settled before a ...

I'm sitting in Koen-Dori Classics, a darkened club in the basement of a church on Koen-dori, in Tokyo's Shibuya district. The audience is small, seated in a few rows facing the performers at the front ...

Here was a concert to eliminate perceptions of the koto being an inherently limited instrument. The models ranged from five strings to the conventional 13 strings and the 17-string bass koto, the ...

In February 2021, Ishigure Masayo was invited to give a performance on the koto at the Japanese Consulate in New York. The event was part of the monthly Friday Night Live series held at the ambassador ...

The koto's timbre. . .gives the music an ethereal air, quite fitting since the koto was an ancient instrument identified with the voice of the spirit in medieval times My wife and I are sitting in ...

Satsuki Odamura is a master of the koto, performing traditional and new works for the Japanese zither, and today she joins Tamara-Anna Cislowska for an hour of conversation and a live duet. Satsuki ...

Composer Miya Masaoka has started playing the "Laser Koto," a futuristic version of the traditional Japanese stringed instrument, the Koto, that's been around since the 8th century. Masaoka outfitted ...

Japanese-studies specialist and Japanese language teacher Katarzyna Karpowicz tells us about playing the koto and the Japanese musical avant-garde. Filip Lech: How did you end up in Japan? Katarzyna ...

Pick your favourite, because these were just some of the adjectives used to describe the four-song set performed by Japanese musician Sumie Kaneko on Thursday at an event hosted by the Embassy of ...