Kyo-Shin-An Arts Presents SNOWDROP MOMENT

From groundbreaking to mainstream, over the last decade KSA has built and promoted a wide body of new classical repertoire combining Japanese and Western instruments.

Commissions to date total 29 composers for 49 new works.

The 10th Anniversary Season continues on February 10 with SNOWDROP MOMENT, a program of solos and duos for kugo, harp and shakuhachi performed by Tomoko Sugawara and James Nyoraku Schlefer.

Sunday, February 10, 2019 at 4:00 PM
Tenri Cultural Institute
43A West 13 Street, Manhattan

TICKETS: $25 general audiences and $15 students and seniors. In advance at brownpapertickets.com.

The beautiful Japanese kugo disappeared from East Asia 1,000 years ago and from the Middle East 300 years ago. Over a decade ago, harpist Tomoko Sugawara recreated the instrument from ancient images. Join Kyo-Shin-An Arts in a voyage of discovery and an afternoon of contemporary music for kugo, Western harp and shakuhachi.

Music by Anne Boyd, Bun-Ching Lam, Kikuko Matsumoto, Michiyo Miyagi and more. Featuring world premieres by Yao Heng-lu and Robert Lombardo.

FEATURED PROGRAM:

Anne Boyd - A Feather on the Breath of God
Robert Lombardo - SHAKUGO; Three Duets (world premiere)
Yao Heng-Lu - Moon in Mid-Autumn and Good Scene South of River (world premiere)
Bun-Ching Lam - Three Songs from Shide
Kikuko Matsumoto - Tsuma-Shirabe

The Kugo (Angular harp). With an L-shaped body, it arose in Mesopotamia around 1900 B.C. It soon spread to other regions of the Near East, eventually becoming a favorite instrument in local Islamic cultures where it survived until 1700 A.D. Meanwhile, it entered the Silk Road and reached China around 500 CE. Korea and Japan came next, but it disappeared from the Far East by 1100. Egypt adopted it 1400 B.C. Wherever it went, artists, poets, and musicians loved its beautiful shape and admired its complex sound. But angular harps hardly penetrated into Europe, which instead launched its own harp -the Frame harp- although at a very late date, 800 A.D. Slowly Frame harps took over the world. - Bo Lawergren, Professor emeritus, Department of Physics & Astronomy, Hunter College of CUNY, New York.