Sakura Weekend Kick-Off Night

Enjoy an evening of of five traditional Japanese cultural performances at the Fallser club! This event is part of the 2023 Subaru Cherry Blossom Festival, a month-long celebration of Japanese culture in Philadelphia culminating in the Sakura Weekend (April 15-16).

Mirai Yasuyama will give a performance on Koto, a plucked half-tube Japanese zither instrument, accompanied by The Keystone Japan Club’s chorus which will perform one of the most traditional songs in Japan, the Sōran Bushi, a Japanese sea shanty.

A Violin performance of beautiful Japanese music by a Philadelphia-native violinist, Isabella Egawa, currently a graduate student at Julliard and having previously performed as a soloist with the Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic Orchestra and served as concertmaster of the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra.

Katsura Sunshine, Canadian storyteller of Rakugo, a 400-year-old Japanese traditional art of comic storytelling. Playwright, composer and producer of musical theatre, in 2008 he became the 15th apprentice to the great Rakugo Master Katsura Bunshi VI, from whom he received the name Katsura Sunshine. Sunshine became the first-ever Western Master in the Osaka-based “Kamigata” tradition and he is one of only 800 Rakugo Masters in the world.

A performance by Japanese native, Rino Aise, on the sanshin, a rare Okinawan instrument. Rino Aise is a performer of drama and music, particularly for peace. Rino initially studied Minyo (folk songs) with Ryushu Kubota, the highest teacher of the Hokkaido Folk Song Federation and, then, started playing sanshin to pursue her music career, singing folk songs, anime songs and original songs in the U.S. and Japan.