Music Reviews : Folk Music Ensemble at Japan America Theatre

Kaze, a six-member shamisen and shakuhachi folk music ensemble from northern Japan, scored a big hit with the largely Japanese audience Wednesday at the Japan America Theatre.

But despite onstage translation provided by Kim Nagatani, a listener not fluent in Japanese occasionally was left in the dark.

The northern style of playing the shamisen, a traditional three-stringed instrument that looks a little like a miniature square banjo, involves striking the strings with a plectrum rather than plucking them.

This allows for extra percussive effects as well as masterful control of dynamics, especially when the plectrum is wielded by Yujiro Takahashi, founder of the group and teacher of the other shamisen (and drum) players.

The fiendishly difficult shakuhachi (bamboo flute) was played expertly and expressively by Issei Tsukuda, who created a throaty, muffled mezzo-soprano voice, shifted adroitly between single and multiple tones and offered wonderfully pulsed phrasing.

Though billed as a folk troupe, the musicians were amplified and the first half of the program turned out to be very theatrical in presentation, with recorded sounds of wind or waves, blackouts between selections and moody background or spotlighting during the playing.

After intermission, the musicians let their hair down, so to speak, by opening with a popsy medley of folk tunes from Japan and, mostly, the American South and West, although some people must have recognized a Peruvian folk tune as filtered through the Simon & Garfunkel version, “El Condor Pasa.”

This may be a record of sorts in cross-cultural fertilization.

Perhaps the high point of the program, however, was a dramatic and arresting instrumental suite evoking the hardships of life and the determination of the people in the cold climes of the north.