"Artistic skill that cannot be appreciated by young people is bound to fade away." -- Legendary Tsugaru shamisen player Chikuzan Takahashi, in his autobiography, published in 1975 It's one thing to popularize music, but it's another to ensure that it lasts. For the past ...

Last summer, at his annual Saito Kinen Festival in Nagano Prefecture, maestro Seiji Ozawa chose to perform the opera "Peter Grimes," in which the sea imagery represents the protagonist's emotions. Harpist Naoko Yoshino, one of the invited guest musicians, contributed greatly to the opera's ...

Mark Deeble and Victoria Stone met at a diving class when they were students. Then, after graduation, they worked on an environmental-impact assessment project in the beautiful Fal estuary in Cornwall, southwest England, where a new port was being planned. It was the love ...

In 1995 Tomomi Nishimoto was regularly sneaking into an auditorium to watch an esteemed Bolshoi maestro rehearse. Seven years later, she was appointed the first Japanese chief conductor of Russia's state-run Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra Millennium. The recent chapters of Nishimoto's career might sound like something ...

Even today, most of the "milk" in Japan is soymilk, eaten as tofu. The lactic sort, from cows, may be steadily growing in popularity, but consumption per person is still only around a liter a week, according to government data issued last year. Even this, ...

It is a few minutes before rehearsal. A tall, slender man, dressed in a loose cardigan, is checking the stage of the concert hall where he will perform a Debussy cello sonata that night. The hair at the back of his head sticks out ...

In the world of popular classical music, few stars shine brighter than that of pianist Fujiko Hemming, whose debut CD, "La Campanella," has sold more than 900,000 copies worldwide and collected a Japan Gold Disc Award and numerous classical album of the year awards ...

MATSUMOTO, Nagano Pref. -- "What does everyone think?" There is silence. The maestro waits a few beats, and with perfect timing, he asks again, "What do you think?" The reputation of world-renowned conductor Seiji Ozawa is daunting, as is his appearance, with his dramatically busy hair, ...

Colorful characters and animals come alive in the stained-glass windows of Ghibli Museum Mitaka. Colorful characters and animals come alive in the stained-glass windows of Ghibli Museum Mitaka. The films of Hayao Miyazaki represent the height of two-dimensional animation, but Takaaki and Yuriko Yatsuda ...

The rhythms Mamady Keita draws from the djembe can make one feel as though awakened from centuries of sleep or even perhaps strangely nostalgic. They are at once familiar and fresh, offering the forgotten comforts of a mother's heartbeat and stimulating senses unused in ...