The late Eloise Cunningham, a lifelong resident of Japan, founded Music for Youth, which is dedicated to presenting musical programs for young people. Her Tokyo house, a Frank Lloyd Wright design, embodies many of his distinctive, country-style characteristics: huge exposed beams, an open stairway, a wood-burning fireplace, even a borrowed view of the garden of Nezu Museum. When she died a few years ago, Cunningham left her house to Music for Youth.
A trio gave an MFY charity concert in the house, which is now called MFY Salon, last Sunday. The flutist in the ensemble of flute, koto and shakuhachi was Marie Lorenz Okabe, the Danish-born wife of a Japanese architect. Marie appreciates the aesthetic setting of the MFY Salon. She schedules there lessons that she gives on the flute.
Marie spent most of her young life in what was then Rhodesia, where she was introduced to the piano. She says she clearly remembers the deep impression made on her when she first heard a flute. At 19, in 1962, she left Africa to enter the Royal Danish Conservatory of Music in Copenhagen. During five years there, she attended master classes in Switzerland and took part in concerts at the Royal Conservatory.