Japanese musician wows audience at Napa

Karachi
Almost all of us harbour the conception that Japanese society has a mighty propensity to westernisation and that the nation identifies itself more with the West culturally. However, a concert held at a hotel on Sunday, proved beyond a shadow of doubt that the traditional Japanese music was every bit oriental and had nothing Western about it.
The music very much resembled the Persian genre or at certain junctures the Punjabi one.
There was nothing during the two-hour concert to even remotely suggest the westernisation that we all held synonymous with Japan.
Sumie Kaneko, a Japanese musician residing in New York had highly polished antecedents in music; she was both an instrumentalist as well as a vocalist.
Her vocal numbers were accompanied by two traditional Japanese instruments, the Koto and the Shamisen.
Kaneko opened the account with a Japanese vocal number with accompaniment of the Shamisen. Most of us may not have been engrossed by it as it was an unfamiliar genre of music but it sure was very interesting. It was a song engendering various forms.
Kaneko’s voice was really smooth, velvety, and mellifluous. She seemed to have total breath control while her cadences were measured. At certain junctures, it sounded absolutely Persian in content while at others it sounded like the sub-continental Sufi music.
Kaneko’s mastery and finger work at both the Koto and the Shamisen was highly commendable.
Followed by the song was fusion music with Napa’s (National Academy of Performing Arts) Sitar maestro Ustad Nafees Khan and Ustad Bashr Khan on the Tabla with Sindhi vocalists joining Kaneko and presenting a totally new variety of melody.
Earlier, there was a Sindhi folk quartet and Kaneko presented a piece with both Sitar and Shamisen accompaniment.
What could be said about the performance was that, melody or profundity aside, it was a highly educative performance having acquainted the audience with a lively and enlivening genre of music.
Presiding over the event, Advisor to Chief Minister on cultural affairs Sharmila Faruqi said both Japan and Pakistan realised the importance of music in bridging cultures and bringing them together.