Japanese Autumn in the Capital

The Moscow State Conservatory holds the XII Musical Festival “The Soul of Japan” (Nihon-no Kokoro). This festival has already become a traditional one: when autumn comes, music lovers start looking forward to opening of the festival. The major festival concerts traditionally take place in the concert and lecture halls of the Moscow State Conservatory named after P.I. Tchaikovsky. This year you will also be able to listen to Japanese music in the Palace on Yauza and the State Institute of Art Studies.

According to the Director of the festival Margarita Karatygina, “The Soul of Japan” is an effort to penetrate into the soul of our planet mate. It is a benevolent and cordial message to the people of Japan with a wish of kind and productive relationships at present and in the future. The festival’s promoters also emphasize a deep cognation of the cultures — the Russian and the Japanese ones — ascending to the most ancient cult of the sun and nature adoration rituals.

At the festival you will hear the classical and contemporary Japanese music for traditional instruments, as well as works of Japanese composers created along the lines of the European tradition performed by Russian and Japanese musicians. Philharmonics will also be able to hear the music of the Russian and European composers based on the Japanese topics and texts.

The goal of “The Soul of Japan” Festival is to make the Russian audience acquainted with the spiritual originality, treasures of Japanese musical culture and Japanese experience in preserving high cultural traditions as a way for grasp and strengthening of the national identity. For 12 years of its existence the festival has brought up its own spectators able to come to the concert not only due to curiosity, but also to enjoy and realize the true value of the Japanese music so extraordinary for the European musical tradition. The evidence thereof is the overcrowded Rakhmaninov Hall of the Conservatory and the applause that lasted for minutes after the end of “The Moon over the Old Castle” Concert. The musicians from the Japan Association of the XXI Century Music headed by Nishimura Koiti demonstrated the tradition called “hogaku” in Japan (the “proper Japanese music”). The musicians played traditional Japanese musical instruments — bamboo flutes — shakuhachi, three-stringed lutes — shamisens, Japanese cither — koto and a high power wooden drum. The Japanese call sounds of the ancient cither koto in a very romantic way — “the wind in the pines”. Moscow philharmonics could feel all the poesy and clearness of these marvelous sounds.

Music lovers will be able to have other rendezvous with the musical life of Japan. The Festival ends on December 23 and its visitors will be able to listen to traditional Japanese songs dziuta backed up the koto instrument, a concert of a shakuhachi maestros band, to see the opera “O-Natsu” by Issei Tsukamoto composed for principals, a choir and a band of the European and Japanese instruments before it closes down. At the concert “Fujiyama is the Constant in the World of Change” dances with the sword embu and demonstration of the Japanese martial arts will be backed by guiney samurai songs. The festival’s promoters are the Embassy of Japan in Moscow and the Russian-Japanese Center of Music Culture in the Moscow State Conservatory appeal to the spectators to listen to the sounds of the Japanese culture attentively and enrich their hearts with wisdom and kindness.

“The Soul of Japan” Music Festival is a part of a vast program of “The Japanese Autumn” Festival organized by the Embassy of Japan in Russia, the Japanese Business Club and the Japanese Center at the MGU (Moscow State University). In addition to music, various events — exhibitions of pictorial arts, arts and crafts, lectures, workshops, conferences of the scientific communities of the both countries, theatrical releases, cinema festivals, competitions in the traditional Japanese sports — are included into the program of the festival. On applications of Moscow schools field lectures may be arranged to allow children to get acquainted with various aspects of the Japanese culture: origami, children’s games, martial arts (kendo and karate) and traditional Japanese music.

Other cultural events devoted to Japan are also held this autumn. In September and October a personal exhibition of a Japanese painter Nobuko Watabiki is housed in RuArts gallery. The works of the painter research and reflect the way of a man from perception of his ego to the reflection thereof in the outer world.

The Muscovites will also see an interactive exhibition project “Samurais. Art of War”. It starts its work on November 12 in the Moscow Provision Warehouses of the Moscow City Museum. The exhibition project is represented by the festival of world cultures “Etnolife”, the East Heritage Fund together with the Moscow City Museum and Martial Arts Association of Russia under the auspices of the Embassy of Japan in Russia. Visitors will see a collection of paintings and calligraphies, a collection of ancient swords made by great Japanese masters and armors of famous warlords — daimios.