On a recent Saturday evening in Tokyo's Shibuya district, I had the privilege of being the audience at a concert by 12 students from Tokyu Seminar BE school of continuing education.
As I sat in the front row, each student removed from their bag a matryoshka -- a Russian nesting doll -- and a stethoscope. Then they put one arm of their stethoscope into one ear and placed the end on the side of their doll. Next, their teacher and conductor, Koichiro Aida, called them to attention before starting a CD player playing a piece of piano music. With that, the band began to wave their free hands back and forth in front of the dolls -- creating an electronic warble that I soon recognized as a haunting version of "Over the Rainbow" from "The Wizard of Oz." It was like watching a group of doctors each examining a group of matryoshkas and casting spells on them.
As their faces became intent with concentration, their right hands, with fingers bent, moved different distances from the doll, creating what sounded like a cello or even a flute, or as one of the women said -- a woman's voice. Obviously, these were no ordinary matryoshkas.