Harbor View Hill - What Changes and What Remains
While I was attending Yokohama International School (YIS) from elementary school to high school, I still remember clearly climbing the 20-minute walk from Ishikawacho Station on the Keihin Tohoku and Negishi lines to Minato no Mieru Oka Park many times, carrying my heavy American-made cello case. (Looking back, it may have been a good workout!) I would pass through Motomachi, climb the stairs (some of which were inclined, so be careful when it rains as they could be slippery) on the road next to the foreign cemetery, and reach the top panting. There is no convenient Minatomirai Line that goes directly to the Toyoko and Fukutoshin lines, and the area called "Amerikayama Park" is a wasteland surrounded by a fence, and entering the area was considered a test of courage among my friends. Now when I walk through Amerikayama Park, I'm a little happy to know what the "wasteland" was like in the past. I feel like I'm in the midst of the historical transition of the same area.
In this column, I would like to talk about the Yokohama area where I grew up and my musical activities since elementary school. Currently, as a cellist, I mainly play classical music, but I also have the opportunity to play a wide range of music genres, including tango, jazz, pop music, and pop music. What particularly inspired me to play music in genres other than classical music was Shanti Dragon 3 (a trio with which I am still active today). Although the group name was different at the time, I had the opportunity to play with the trio's Akemi Hayashi (piano, composition and arrangement) and Toku Kongo (saxophone) from junior high and high school, and we even performed together on the CD "Yume Futaya" when I was in high school. I feel very honored to be able to perform with these two people who I have called my teachers for many years.
In recent years, I have become especially attached to the Motomachi area, due to the fact that the Yokohama International School campus will be relocating to Honmoku in January 2022, and my father, who loved the Motomachi area, passed away in 2017. My father, Morgan Gibson, was a poet and a university professor of literature in Japan and the United States for many years. After his death, I translated some of my father's poems into Japanese with my mother, who is also a university professor of literature, and recited them at Shanti Dragon 3's live shows with improvisations. I fondly remember my father, who loved the Motomachi area, chatting away over giant lattes at Starbucks.
I was born in Michigan, USA, and started learning cello at the age of 4 using the Suzuki Method. I moved to Japan at the age of 6 and attended a public elementary school in Mihama-ku, Chiba City for about 2 years. The area was surrounded by housing complexes, and there were almost no foreigners there, so I remember that my father and I stood out a lot. Later, I wanted to improve my English, so I moved to Yokohama and started attending YIS. At that time, Yokohama (especially the Bluff area) was like New York to me. There were students from various countries in my class, and I could hear a wide variety of English. Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, England, China, Korea, Japan, and more. I was in a blessed environment where I could be exposed to various kinds of English. And the English spoken by the teachers and students had their own unique characteristics. (For example, when a teacher from New Zealand pronounced "disk," it took me a while to realize that it was actually "desk.") Looking back, I learned a lot not only from the curriculum but also from these experiences. Musically, I started learning the Suzuki Method, which emphasizes playing by ear, and gradually began to study how to read music. Despite some confusion, I gradually became able to play in ensembles.
When I was in the upper grades of elementary school, I started to like pop music such as GLAY and Spitz, and I wanted to learn bass guitar in my neighborhood, so I called a school I found in the Yellow Pages and visited it. (Internet searches were not yet common at that time.) Unfortunately, I did not improve my bass guitar skills, and it ended as a temporary frenzy, but I wanted to learn solfege and piano at the same school, and that's where I first met Professor Akemi Hayashi. As a piano student, I think I was quite poor, even with Beyer, but I was invited to play jazz with Mr. Kongo Toku and original songs, and we performed at jazz shops in the Kannai area, and as a culmination of our studies, we performed together in a concert that included readings at the Yokohama Museum of Art Hall. For me, who had only known classical music for cello performances, improvising while listening to chords was a shock that changed my language, but my ears, cultivated by the Suzuki Method, may have helped me, even though I had no understanding of theory. We were fortunate to have the opportunity to perform early on in jazz cafes and halls, rather than just attending the arranged recitals.
Performers create music together with their audiences, but I feel it is a great shame that events such as live performances at jazz venues, which allow for personal interaction, and salon concerts, which also include eating and drinking, have all been canceled or scaled down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Humans are creatures of habit, and habits create culture. I would like to continue my efforts as a performer (while paying attention to infection prevention measures) so that such habits, culture, and art can continue in the future.
Shantee Dragon 3 mainly works in the Yokohama area, but their theme is "songs" that transcend genres. I think that every culture in the world has some kind of song, but songs grow in culture and we hum them without even realizing it. The flow in which the song was born and grew is connected to the new songs that are born at each performance. I think that the things that are put into the song, such as the singing style that cannot be explained by the sheet music alone, the timing, and the scenes that come to mind when singing, are inherited by the performers and the audience. The form of "variations" that is often used in jazz is often used in Shantee Dragon's performances. Through improvisation, the song is unravelled and tied together, memories are recalled, instruments are intertwined, and then it returns to the original simple song. The audience claps their hands, talks about things they remember through the song, and the music is connected to the next one by influencing each other.
In the future, I would like to continue to listen to "songs" beyond the genre, cherish the inspiration, and deliver something that touches the hearts of those who listen. As the place where I grew up from elementary school to high school, the history of Yokohama has had a tangible and intangible influence on me. There are moments when I take a walk and look at the changing streets and suddenly remember the past. I hope to be able to perform in that way. I want to cherish what changes and what remains.
【profile】
Shanti Dragon Trio
Shanti means "inner peace" in Sanskrit. The dragon is not the dragon as it is perceived in the West, but a dragon that symbolizes auspicious power in Asia and is the god of water.
Shantey Dragon was originally a duo consisting of pianist Akemi Hayashi and saxophonist Toku Kongo, but when cellist Christopher Satoshi Gibson, who was also Hayashi's piano and solfeggio student, joined, the group was written as Shantey Dragon 3.
The trio began with the Yokohama Museum of Art Hall concert at Yokohama Art Live 2003, and the recording of the CD "Yume Futa Ya" composed by Akemi Hayashi in the same year. In addition, they have been actively involved in volunteer performances at facilities for the disabled.
Christopher Gibson left Japan to attend a university in the United States, putting the trio on hold for a while, but after returning to Japan and working in various scenes, he rejoined Shantae Dragon in 2019. They resumed activities as Shantae Dragon 3.
Pianist, composer and arranger. Born and living in Yokohama.
From an early age, she started playing the piano and electronic organ, and studied piano under her relatives, Jo Matsutani and Midori Matsutani. Under their guidance, she was exposed to a wide range of music, from classical to contemporary music, pop, and jazz, and began performing while still a student at a music college.
After graduating from a music college, he worked at the Yokohama Contemporary Music Academy and other institutions, as a music school instructor, and as a solfeggio instructor for the Yokohama Municipal High School Brass Band, before establishing Maple Piano School (Isogo-ku, Yokohama). Utilizing his experience as a piano instructor and player, he strives to teach the next generation of piano players, from children to adults.
They perform at concerts sponsored by Yokohama City, Yamate Western-style Houses (British House, Berrick Hall, Bluff No. 18), Sankeien Garden "Moon Viewing Concert," Yokohama Jazz Promenade, and other venues and live music venues in Yokohama and Tokyo. They often perform original songs, and have released over 100 original songs, including those included on CDs. They have released five CDs to date.
Volunteer performances are also actively participated in.
Born in Michigan, USA. Started playing the cello at age 4. Participated in summer programs at Tanglewood, Indiana University, and Interlochen while in high school. After graduating from Yokohama International School, entered Yale University in 2005, double majoring in philosophy and political science.
While studying at Yale, she passed an audition with cellist Aldo Parisot and studied cello under Ole Akahoshi, who was Pierre Fournier's youngest student and Janos Starker's assistant for many years, at the Yale School of Music. She also studied chamber music under Wendy Sharp at the same school. In 2009, she won a prize at the Yale School of Music FOM competition. In the winter of 2012, when she won a prize at the International Association of Performers' Newcomers Audition, she received praise from violinist Shigemichi Kawabata, one of the judges, for her "performance that allows you to enter the world of the music."
In 2017, under the auspices of the NPO Emotion in Motion, she held the “BACH Solo” unaccompanied cello recital series at the Minato Mirai Small Hall, Tiara Koto, Tokorozawa Muse, and Suntory Hall “Blue Rose”. She has performed with violinist Ikuko Kawai on TV Tokyo’s “100 Years of Music” program recordings and concerts, as well as at BLUE NOTE TOKYO (2020), Cerulean Tower Noh Theater (2019), and Mitsukoshi Theater (2018). She is active mainly in Tokyo, Kamakura, Nagano, and other areas.
He started playing the saxophone at the age of 12, and studied under Hisatoshi Muta (President of the Japan Band Directors Association, former head of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Band) and Makoto Suda (Professor at Musashino Academia Musicae). He joined Yanagisawa Wind Instruments Co., Ltd., one of the three largest saxophone manufacturers in the world.
After working in instrument manufacturing, research, instruction and management, he went independent. In 1995, he established Congo Saxophone Studio and began offering saxophone repair, lessons and performance services. In 1997, his CD /OUR TRIBAL MUSIC won him the Jazz Life magazine Best New Artist Award. He was appointed by the Yokohama City Board of Education to teach at Yokohama Minato Commercial High School for four years. In addition to concerts and recordings at the Yokohama Museum of Art Hall, Minato Mirai Hall, Kanagawa Prefectural Music Hall, Sankeien Garden, Yamate Seiyokan and other venues, he also actively volunteers at Yokohama City University Hospital and facilities for the disabled and welfare facilities in Tokyo, Kanagawa, Kyushu and Hokuriku.
He has performed with top Japanese musicians, musicians from the UK, Italy, Switzerland and France, calligrapher Suisen Nakatani, dancer Kazuo Ohno, actor Stiart Burnham Atkin, reciter Akira Kodama, Important Intangible Cultural Property Holder Bokusei Mochizuki, and many others, often across genres. He also teaches a citizen saxophone ensemble that plays mainly Bach chorales.
Several CDs and DVDs have been released so far.
