Real classical Japanese music is a rare thing today. There is a wide-ranging repertoire for Japanese traditional instruments, but there are few performers who specialize in the classics of these genres, or whose musical education focused on those classics.

Two such women, however, about half a century apart in age, will present their art May 10 and 12 at Kioi Small Hall in Tokyo. This hall, tiny by modern standards at 250 seats, claims to be the only one in the country built for the express purpose of presenting Japanese classical music.

This may simply emphasize that Japanese music does not need a dedicated hall to be performed successfully, but the existence of such a hall is an inspiration to classical performers.

Additionally, the Shinnittetsu Cultural Foundation (SCF) is generous in its support of Japanese music concerts (and Western as well), and the attentive concert-goer will find the words, "This concert supported in part by the Shinnittetsu Cultural Foundation" on many concert programs, even those for concerts performed in other halls. This foundation is firm in its commitment to support Japanese music.

Whether such foundation support is good for the art itself is sometimes questioned. The argument is that if an art cannot survive without exterior support (government, foundation, etc.), this is nothing more than the forces of natural selection in action and the art should be allowed to pass away, singing the dodo's farewell.

Actually, though, very few arts do not benefit from exterior support in one way or another. Western music in Japan is definitely a case in point. About 130 years ago, the Meiji government chose to incorporate Western music into the educational curriculum, but not Japanese music, and the result has been over a century of Japanese growing up with Western music (classical in particular) as their first musical language.

With government support like this, Western music flourished in Japan at the expense of the country's own. With this in mind, it seems only reasonable to give some sort of support to the practitioners of Japanese classical music as they bring it, still struggling along, into another century. So, praise and accolades to the SCF!

Living National Treasure Toshiko Yonekawa is featured in a concert May 10 at Kioi Hall that focuses not so much on the artist as on her works. This concert is the 10th in Kioi Hall's "Forms and Aspects of Japanese Music" series, and is titled "Toshiko Yonekawa: Composer." It takes a look at the works of one of the giants in the Japanese music world of the 20th century.

Born in 1913, Yonekawa continues to be an active teacher, performer and composer in her 86th year. While her designation as a Living National Treasure is for her koto performance, she has been an exciting and influential force as a composer as well, starting in her 20s and having composed some 100 works to date. "Toshiko Yonekawa: Composer" introduces five of those: Op. 1, 16, 24, 33 and 70, to be exact. They are all for ensembles of three or four of the following instruments: koto, 17-string koto, shamisen and shakuhachi.

True to the era she has lived and worked in, Yonekawa's pieces reflect the influence of Western music. Three of the pieces in the program have vocal parts sung by Western-trained singers singing in the bel canto style, a dramatic departure from classical Japanese tradition.

For this concert, Yonekawa is joined by masters Tomoko Sunazaki (koto) and Teiko Kikuchi (17-string koto) and several of her top students, including her daughter Hiroe, who is very active at the cutting edge of koto and shamisen performance today.

The other featured concert next week is Akiko Fujii's Third Koto and Shamisen Recital. About 50 years younger than Yonekawa, and therefore still little more than a babe by the standards of the classical hogaku world, Fujii has nonetheless been playing these instruments for about three decades. She started doing recitals in 1995, and has performed all over Japan and around the world as well.

Fujii is the third generation in a line of woman koto players, and like her mother, Kunie Fujii, and her grandmother, the late Keiko Abe, she is blessed with a beautiful voice, both sweet and rich, that is still maturing. Since singing is such an integral part of the classical music for koto and shamisen that is Fujii's specialty, it is not even mentioned in the title of her concert. This element, however, taken for granted like the air we breath, forms the core of this program.

Fujii starts out with "Yuki (Snow)," the song of a woman reflecting on the passage of the years and the evanescence of being. This poignant solo for shamisen and voice is recognized as a masterpiece of the genre, and is only attempted by artists confident in their singing ability.

The next piece, "Matsukaze," for shamisen and koto, has lyrics taken from the noh play of the same title. It is a love story of Heian Period poet and lover Ariwara no Narihira and his affair with two pearl-diver maidens, Matsukaze ("Wind in the Pines") and Murasame ("Rain Shower"), whom he meets while in exile from the capitol.

Fujii concludes with the masterpiece "Nana Komachi (Seven Tales of Komachi)," for shamisen, koto and shakuhachi, about the great poet Ono no Komachi, who was said to be one of the most beautiful women in Japanese history. The rumor is hard to verify, but the beauty of the music speaks for itself. Fujii's mother Kunie's rendition of this song was one of the peaks of musical performance in the past few decades, and no doubt daughter Akiko will strive to emulate that success.

Her koto accompanies shamisen played by Hirokazu Fujii, her brother and co-head of the Ginmei-kai koto and shamisen school. Shoji Aoki joins them on shakuhachi.

"Toshiko Yonekawa: Composer" 6:30 p.m. May 10 at Kioi Small Hall, (03) 5276-4500, across the street from the New Otani Hotel, eight minutes from Akasaka Mitsuke Station and six minutes from Yotsuya Station 4,000 yen ("Wakaba" youth discount seats 3,000 yen). Call Kioi Hall Tickets, (03) 3237-0061, for information and reservations.