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DUET and TRIO
DUET " Ballad in the Land of the Rising Sun "
with Fumie HIHARA, koto, shamisen, voice
Classical, popular traditions and modern music
(improvisation on the minyô, recorded in August 2013, Lanmodez, France)
They first have been produced together at the International Contemporary Music Festival Ars Musica in Brussels in 2012, they played then in l’Auditori in Barcelona, in "salle Ropartz" in Rennes (France), etc. They have been invited by Patrick Campistron, chronicler, to record and make the arrangements of a collection of Japanese lullabies and children songs: CD ”Impressions Japonaises” 2018, and Fumie Hihara has been invited on CD ”Sillage” 2015 in the duet with the pianist Lydia Domancich.
Fumie HIHARA has the asset to share her life between France, her adoption country, and Japan, her native country, between Paris and Tôkyô: to be able to present her own culture while coming back to the roots, to be able to develop creative projects with a free feeling, and collecting new ideas here and there. With a solid background, she is a musician from the tradition (Yamada style) with a master licence at the age of 17, and graduated from the University of Fine Arts and Music of Tôkyô in 1998. Fumie Hihara is also a composer, and in a very open mind she works on experimental projects and new pieces with composers as much in Europe as in Japan: Festival d'Avignon, Opera-house in Lyon, Maison de l'Unesco, Guimet Museum in Paris, etc.
(classical tradition, recorded in January 2015, Tarbes, France)
TRIO " Yuya "
with Etsuko CHIDA (koto, voice) and Fumie HIHARA (shamisen, voice)
classical tradition in Yamada style and popular tradition from Hokkaïdo Island
YUYA is a trio based on the classical Yamada style, common to these two Japanese musicians, using a deep chant close to the Kabuki theater style, rare to hear in Europe, and the popular Minyô tradition in the typical and very ornemented style of the Hokkaïdo Island (North of Japan), where Etsuko Chida comes from. The name of this trio is "Yuya", a masterfull piece of the koto played in this programm, made out of the Heike Monogatari, an epic in prose of the 12th century.
Etsuko CHIDA: CD "Japon, Chants Courtois", Buda Records ("Choc", in "Le Monde de la Musique" review, France)