Yumi Kurosawa, born into a family of koto players in Japan, started her koto studies at the age of three with her parents, Kazuo and…
Artist Profiles: Koto Innovator Yumi Kurosawa
Tag: Japan
Artist Profiles: Joji Hirota
Drummer, singer, flute player and composer, Joji Hirota easily defies definition. Trained as a classical musician in Japan, he has spent over half his life…
Artist Profiles: Yoshida Brothers
The Yoshida Brothers, the stellar tsugaru-shamisen duo comprised of siblings Ryoichiro and Kenichi were a pop culture phenomenon in their native Japan in the first…
Artist Profiles: Yukihiro Atsumi
Japanese composer and guitarist Yukihiro Atsumi has had a multifaceted music career, collaborating with a wide range of well-known artists within and outside of Japan.…
Artist Profiles: Minyo Crusaders
In the late 1990s, guitarist Katsumi Tanaka moved to Fussa, a city in western Tokyo immersed in counter-culture folklore. Initially uninterested in min’yō, a catastrophic…
Artist Profiles: Yoko Hiraoka
Yoko Hiraoka is a master of the classical music of Japan and performs with koto, shamisen and voice. Her early training as a young player…
Artist Profiles: Yuji Hasegawa
Yuji Hasegawa was born in 1941 in Itayanagi, Aomori. He is the leading performer of tsugaru-shamisen in the Hasegawa-Sangenkai Style. He is also the Chairman…
Artist Profiles: Dozan Fujiwara
Dozan Fujiwara studied shakuhachi under Yamamoto Hozan. A graduate of Tokyo University of Fine Arts in 1995, Fujiwara participated in the International Shakuhachi Festival held…
Artist Profiles: Gocoo
Gocoo is an 11-person (7 women, 4 men) drumming group that captures the audience with original grooves woven with Japanese drums, taikos. The group was…