The diplomatic cultural events circuit

Something of a random spot in the free Metro paper. Sunday 31st October M and I attended 'an afternoon of classical guitar, flute and violin' sponsored by the Embassy of Japan but held in the auditorium of the National Gallery of Canada. We thought, maybe it would be similar to the Swiss Ambassador's Award Concert last year - we were wrong. The NCG auditorium holds many more people (a few hundred at least) and is much more modern. The show, free and not ticketed, was also completely full - mixture of dignatories, Japanese local residents and others. According to the Ambassador's preamble, almost 100 people were turned away!

The 3 musicians - Yasuji Ohagi, guitar; Kazunori Seo, flute; Gentaro Kagitomi, violin - have played a string of concerts across Canada, in Vancouver, Montreal and Quebec City as well as Ottawa. The programme was a mixture of (predominantly 20th century) Eastern and Western music for solo, duo and trio. M and I thought the solo works (Ysäye: Sonata No. 6 in Emaj for solo violin, and Kuhlau: Fantaisie No. 1 in Dmaj for solo flute) were the least engaging of the pieces played, although the solo guitar piece (Brouwer: Elogio de la Danza) was very good. Best from the first part was Ravi Shankar's L'Aube Enchantée sur le Raga 'Todi' played on flute and guitar. All of the duo/trio pieces were excellent but our preferences were from the second part: Takemutsu: Toward the Sea (flute and guitar); Piazzolla: Historia del Tango (violin and guitar) and the trio, Bondon: Les Folklores Imaginaires, Suite No. 2. The 3 musicians (who were excellent) received rapturous applause at the end of the show, especially after an encore of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.

The full programme list is as follows:
Ravi Shankar: L'Aube Enchantée (The Enchanted Dawn)
Eugène Ysaÿe: Sonata for Solo Violin No. 6
Béla Bartók: Romanian Folk Dances
Friedrich Kuhlau: Fantaisie on a Theme from "Don Giovanni"
Leo Brouwer: Elogio de la Danza (Praise of the Dance)
--------------------------------------------------
Toru Takemitsu: Toward the Sea
Astor Piazzolla: Historia del Tango
Jacques Bondon: Les Folklores Imaginaires Suite No. 2

Judging by the questionnaire given to all attendees, this must be a new event for the Japanese Embassy as there were a few things that could have been organised better (such as ticketing), however we'll be looking for more of this sort of event as it was very entertaining!

photo from the Japan Foundation website

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