Back at It

I've been away from this blog for quite some time, but back at it now.
Since I've been down, the Kumamoto Shakuhachi Festival has come and gone.  Reprocussions have been many and one of note is that I've since joined together with my long time friend and kotoist extrodinaire Izumi Fujikawa and shamisen/kotoist Yumiko Minoda.  Our first performace was on October 12th and Kumamoto's Honmaru goten.  The concert was part of Kumamoto Castle's Festival series.  We performed a piece written by American composer Marty Regan called Dragon Eyes.  It was a difficult piece and took some time to work into, but we were happy with our first performance of it.  Both Izumi and I will be performing in the same venue on November 20 in the evening.  I'll write more about that later.