Like a bird; music for Japanese traditional instruments Satsuki Odamura (koto)
Kasue Sawai Flying Like a Bird;
Voices of Water; A Sound of Sands
Tall Poppies TP044
Australia is nearer to Japan than UK, and the Tall Poppies label features several examples of japanese traditional and contemporary music. This is Satsuki Odamura's first CD, devoted entirely to 20th-century music, and it features the instrument in various and varied settings. Since arriving in Australia less than a decade ago she founded an Australian branch of the Sawai International Kot School and introduced the koto into contemporary performance there, her playing successfully integrating traditional and modern techniques. For this CD she has collaborated with some of the musicians in Australia most fascinated by the meeting of East and West in music.
It is a lovely CD and whets the appetite for more from that source. It is varied, including two bass kotos duetting, and pieces with violin, percussion and Riley Lee's shakuhachi, which is less characteristically breathy than Iwamoto's, as I remember his from a series of BBC broadcasts in the '80s.
Well worth seeking out.
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