Aki & Kuniko Concert

I’ve always enjoyed the events of the Philippines-Japan Friendship month organized by the Japan Foundation, Manila and the Embassy of Japan. For this year, they’ve had the hugely successful Eiga Sai and the still ongoing JAPAN: Kingdom of Characters Exhibit. But the event that I anticipate the most every year is their music offering and for this year, they brought to us Aki and Kuniko, a duo who play the guitar and koto respectively. They’ve had a couple of concerts and a workshop during their brief visit here and I was fortunate to be able to see their first performance held at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium at the RCBC Plaza. A guitar and koto duo is very rare indeed and I wouldn’t pass up on this opportunity despite having a busy week with the Cinemalaya happening at the same time.

Along with a few friends from the Pinoy Violinist group, we were able to witness a magnificent merging of a traditional Japanese stringed instrument (koto) with the modern acoustic guitar. Aki looked like a veteran rocker wearing an all black ensemble while Kuniko looked elegant in a blue kimono. Kuniko really surprised me because while koto is a traditional instrument, she employed modern playing techniques with it like plucking with both hands and even tapping the bottom of the instrument adding percussive touches to the music.

The guitar and koto when playing the same notes in unison brought forth a very interesting tone color which was very interesting to hear. And I found myself very mch enchanted whenever Kuniko bent the strings of the koto which also bent the notes as well. Aki really let Kuniko shine almost the whole performance but he had his moments as well as both had turns playing the melody. A duo since 2002, the years performing together have served them very well as they were really much in sync during that evening. They played a programme, including a guitar and koto transcription of an orchestral suite, that are totally unfamiliar to me but that didn’t affect my enjoyment of the concert at all. I just wished that the description Aki gave before performing the suite was printed out and given away to the audience. It was difficult for me to absorb everything that he said (he spoke in Japanese and a voiceover spoke after with the English translation) so I wasn’t able to connect everything with the music played as well. But that is just a minor gripe to an otherwise excellent night of rarely heard music.

Koto player Kuniko

Too bad that prior commitments and an extremely busy week prevented me to attend the workshop that they’ve had the following morning. I would’ve wanted to hear and learn a lot from them and this workshop was an excellent opportunity that I had to miss. And I would’ve had more photos if I were there since taking of photos were not allowed during their performance inside the auditorium and it was only Kuniko who went out to the lobby afterwards. Anyways despite these minor setbacks, I remain grateful to the nice people from Japan Foundation, Manila for bringing us Aki and Kuniko and in general Japanese culture, cinema and music. And I await the next time that I'll be able to attend their event. And this next one is something that I truly await. Gyabo!