A.UN

Well, the trials of getting a new studio up and running, along with my teaching and performing schedules have kept me away from the keyboard for some time.  The studio is now a viable entity BigFish Studio.  We are nearing completion of our first project with Kumamoto-based rockers, The Bliss.
Within the past 6 months, I've also joined with two of Kumamoto's outstanding koto/shamisen players and formed the Hogaku group A.UN.  We'll be doing our first performance on August 19th at 7:30 pm at Gallery Kimura in Kumamoto with a line up of tunes from a mash-up of Kumamoto's famous folk piece Soran Bushi and Paul Desmond's Take 5 we call Soran Five; a 17 string koto solo by Yumiko Minoda based on a Spanish theme; a shamisen/shakuhachi piece by  Seiho Kinea called Meikyo featuring Yumiko Minoda and me; a five-part koto solo performed by Izumi Fujikawa entitled Yomigaeru Itsutsu no Uta by Hikaru Sawai with special guest dancer Mayumi Yamada from the B_P.zy! Dance Comany; an adaptation of the Kinko-ryu honkyoku Shika no tone performed by me and Dragon Eyes composed by Marty Regan.
From a shakuhachi player's point of view, Marty's piece Dragon Eyes has been the most challenging to bring to a performance level.  Written for a 7 hole 1.6, but played on a 5 hole instrument, not to mention the speed of some of the phrasing with complex meri/kari alternation, plus being able to play the 14 minute + piece from memory has consumed a great deal of practice time, but I'm feeling good about it now and look forward to performing it.  I'll write again after the show with a few photos or a video.  Meanwhile, here's the poster for the show (pretty much in Japanese).