Shakuhachi Concert at Nam Lian Garden

I keep my eye out for traditional Chinese music concerts, but seldom see any Japanese music.

But on 7-Feb there were 2 shakuhachi concerts in one day!    So I booked the concerts by Fukuda Teruhisa.

The concerts were held at the Xiang Hai Xuan hall which is in the middle of the the gorgeous Nan Lian Garden at Diamond Hill in Kowloon.    It is a lovely garden and I don't need much excuse to visit.

I had booked tickets for Hannah and Rika in the afternoon concert, but instead they had to meet up with friends who were leaving Hong Kong so I went on my own.    

Then I queued up to get the last 2 tickets for the evening performance (it was sold out but 4 wheelchair tickets had been held back).  So we were able to enjoy the concert together after dinner at the Nan Lian gardens vegetarian restaurant.

I'd never heard of Fukuda Teruisa before but the concerts were both terrific.   Fukuda-san is clearly a virtuoso.  After listening to chinese orchestral music lately it was startling to be reminded of how expressive and otherworldly the shakuhachi can be in the hands of a master.  

The program was a nice selection of traditional honkyoku and contemporary shakuhachi pieces, played unaccompanied and accompanied by shamisen.  

I haven't heard many contemporary pieces and I hnormally don't enjoy contemporary classical music.  But I enjoyed most of the contemporaty pieces very much.   The ones I liked most were composed by Kineya Seiho (1914-1995?)  and Chan Ming-chi who hosted the event.  

Chan Ming-chi (standing) and Fukuda Teruhisa signing books

The afternoon concert was very well attended.  Afterwards there was an interesting question and answer session in Japanese and Cantonese.   I listened carefully, but although  I could understand about 30% of the Japanese,  I found I could only get the meaning if he said something I already knew!  So unfortunately I couldn't learn much.

Here is a youtube link (here) to  'Ichijyo' by Kineya Seiho.   "This song was composed by Kineya Seiho after the death of a good friend, someone who was at one moment living a very happy life and the next moment gone from this world. The song is a response to questioning how life can hold such a sudden change from happiness to sadness and an expression of experiencing that change".