Japanese American Fusion with Left Coast Chamber Ensemble

Earlier this month, the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble opened their season with a concert that included commissions for two Japanese composers working in the United States. One of those pieces was Wind Whisperer for flute, viola, and harp by Karen Tanaka. The other work was Sharaku Unframed, a "micro-opera" by Hiroya Miura. (Pictured above from left to right are Left Coast Artistic Director Anna Pressley, composers Karen Tanaka and Hiroya Miura, and UC Berkeley Japanese history scholar Mary Elizabeth Berry.)

The afternoon before the performance at the SF Conservatory of Music, there was a "preview" in Samsung Hall at the Asian Art Museum. This was partly because Tanaka was asked to write a piece in response to the current Noguchi/Hasegawa exhibition at the museum, which is good and worth seeing. At the preview there was a conversation about Japan and the West influencing each other, dominated by Berry's assertions on how there is no such thing as a "pure" culture. "Most of the things that people around the world think of as quintessentially Japanese actually originated elsewhere, which they made their own," if I may paraphrase. Then there was a performance of excerpts from the forthcoming concert, including the world premiere of Tanaka's Wind Whisperer. The only problem was that the acoustics in the high-ceilinged Samsung Hall at the museum are terrible for everything, whether it be music or lectures or movies.

The short, delicate trio sounded much better at the SF Conservatory and even managed to upstage the more substantial Sonata for flute, viola and harp by Debussy, both performed by flautist Stacey Pelinka, violist Kurt Rohde and harpist Jennifer Ellis.

In between the two works was Dan Fukijara's Neo for the the shamisen, performed by Hidejiro Honjoh, one of the world's greatest virtuosos on the three-stringed, long-necked Japanese version of a lute. After intermission, he also played and sang two traditional songs, and then performed his own composition, Nihon chanchaka shiki meguri (Quick Tour of Japanese Seasons).

Hiroya Miura gave an explanation of Sharaku Unframed, which was taken from a short play by an American poet, Arthur Davison Ficke, set in a New York modern art gallery in 1940 where ukiyo-e prints by the late 18th century artist Sharaku were being shown, a historical reality.

Sharaku was the pseudonym for a late 18th century artist who created 160 prints, mostly of Kabuki actors, over the course of 18 months, and then was never heard from again. Theories about his real identity are all over the map, but it's been speculated that he was a Noh Theater actor who was fascinated by the more vulgar style of Kabuki in contrast to the very reserved style of Noh.

All the characters are ghosts, and the simple staging and costuming by Liliya Lifanova was very effective. It helped that one of the gallerists, Madame Vignier, was sung by the reliably wonderful soprano Nikki Einfeld...

...and the equally talented baritone Daniel Cilli as the art connoisseur Mr. Mansfield.

The coup de théâtre was the arrival of a silent Noh actor representing Sharaku with Hidejiro Hanjoh singing and playing the shamisen. The music shifted from a modern Western style to a more traditional Japanese sound, and the ghostly meeting of Japanese artists and Western art connoisseurs felt spooky and perfect.