Coming Full Circle – The Music of Otonowa
Coming Full Circle – The Music of Otonowa
Sunday, February 21st, 5:30 pm
Akira Tana, Masaru Koga, Ken Okada and Art Hirahara
In commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the Northern Japan Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster of 2011, OTONOWA will share music and reflections from their tours 2013-2019.
OTONOWA, or “sound circle”, is the ever-evolving musical creation of legendary jazz drummer Akira Tana. What began with a trio formed to play a benefit for victims of the Northern Japan Earthquake and Tsunami disaster of 2011, has emerged as an ensemble and a cause. OTONOWA has travelled year after year to share the healing power of music, to connect with the survivors and to support on-going rebuilding efforts in the Tohoku region.
OTONOWA musicians – Akira Tana (drums), Art Hirahara (piano), Masaru Koga (shakuhachi, saxophone, flute), and Noriyuki Ken Okada (bass), offer a unique sound melding American jazz craft to interpret traditional Japanese folk melodies of their ancestry. Guests: Saki Kono (vocals) and Takahiro Dai (trumpet).
“The quartet – recently returned from a goodwill tour of northern Japanese villages devastated by the 2011 tsunami and earthquake – gave a performance that seemed love-filled and compassionate. At times it felt like a lullaby . . . It was exquisite.” _ San Jose Mercury
“2011’s terrible earthquake and tsunami in Japan were to become a crucible for Otonowa, which launched this brotherhood of Japanese-American jazz luminaries into a program of touring and recording to raise both funds and spirits for the survivors. You’ll hear unique melodies you’ve never heard in highly original settings you’re unlikely soon to forget.” – Stanford Jazz Workshop
The program is hosted by J-Sei in conjunction with its 30th Annual Crab Feed. RSVP on Eventbrite for this free virtual program, “Coming Full Circle: Otonowa“.
Main Photo: Akira Tana, Art Hirahara, Saki Kono, Ken Okada, Masaru Koga
Photo credit: Gabi Nakashima
Join us for an afternoon to see the many faces of J-Sei classes, the volunteer kitchen crew, and hear personal reflections from Leslie Tsukamoto, Joyce Nakamura, and Pat Yamamoto, and special songs prepared by the J-Sei choir directed by Emiko Katsumoto and Carol Newberger.
Amy Sueyoshi is the Dean of the College of Ethnic Studies with a joint faculty appointment at the rank of Professor in Race and Resistance Studies and Sexuality Studies at San Francisco State University. She holds a Ph.D. in history from University of California, Los Angeles and a B.A. from Barnard College of Columbia University. Amy has authored two books, Queer Compulsions: Race, Nation, and Sexuality in the Intimate Life of Yone Noguchi and Discriminating Sex: White Leisure and the Making of the American “Oriental.” She additionally wrote the section on API queer history titled “Breathing Fire” for the National Parks Foundation’s landmark LGBTQ theme study, which won the Paul E. Buchanan Award from the Vernacular Architecture Forum. Amy served as a founding co-curator of the GLBT History Museum, the first queer history museum in the United States, and also seeded the Dragon Fruit Project, a community oral history project for API Equality Northern California, a queer Asian Pacific Islander advocacy group in San Francisco Chinatown. She has won numerous community recognitions including the Clio Award for her work in queer history and the Phoenix Award for her contribution to the Asian Pacific Islander queer women and transgender community. In 2017, San Francisco Pride honored Amy as a Community Grand Marshal.
Stan Yogi is co-author of the award-winning books Wherever There’s a Fight: How Runaway Slaves, Suffragists, Immigrants, Strikers, and Poets Shaped Civil Liberties in California (2009) and Fred Korematsu Speaks Up (2017). He is the co-editor of two books, Highway 99: A Literary Journey Through California’s Great Central Valley (1996) and Asian American Literature: An Annotated Bibliography (1988). His essays have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Daily Journal and academic journals and anthologies. He co-curated the traveling exhibits Art of Survival: Enduring the Turmoil of Tule Lake and Wherever There’s a Fight: A History of Civil Liberties in California. He is a Co-Chair of Okaeri, a group of LGBTQ+-identified Japanese Americans.