Oct. 21 this year marks the 400th anniversary of the most decisive battle in Japan's history, fought at Sekigahara near the border between Shiga and Gifu prefectures, where Tokugawa Ieyasu overcame all opposition to set the course of events for the next three centuries.
An event this weekend in Kansai will celebrate the anniversary with biwa (lute) recital, wadaiko drums and kodan storytelling. The seventh in an annual series of "Biwa Plus" concerts, it is organized by Swiss musicologist and biwa performer Silvain Kyokusei Guignard, with performances May 19-20 at Kyoto's Kurodani Temple and May 21 at the OAG Kobe Center.
A long road has brought Guignard from Switzerland to his present positions as head of the Kansai branch of the German East Asian Association (OAG) and professor at Doshisha Women's University, where he teaches Japanese traditional music to his Japanese students. In Zurich he pursued the piano through university, getting his doctorate with a thesis on Chopin. Along the way, though, the charismatic experience of a seminar taught by distinguished Japanese musicologist Akio Maeda diverted him from the torrent of European music into the quieter flow of Japan's hogaku.