ON March 23 and 24, “Listen to” Murakami concerts brought to life the passion for music of novelist Haruki Murakami at the BGC Performing Arts Center in Taguig City.
Curated by Prof. Junichi Konuma who specializes in music culture, the concerts combined the spoken word read by David Ezra with different genres of music played by jazz pianists Hiroko Kokubo and her trio, and the Beatles-inspired classical ensemble 1966 Quartet, in special collaboration with pianist April Dawnena Merced-Misa.
In one of the segments of the festival, The Japan Foundation hosted the concerts that featured the music woven in Murakami’s novels. It is well-known that Murakami used to run a small jazz bar for several years and he weaves-in various musical references in his novels.
The concert received a standing ovation with 600 full-house audiences in both shows. When Hiroko Kokubu Special Trio played Penny Lane and improvised Leron, Leron Sinta, the Filipino audiences sang along and cheered loudly.
With 23 albums under her belt, pianist, composer and music arranger Kokubu has gained popularity not only in Japan but in the international scene as well. Notably, her albums are warm with beautiful melodies and pop influences in her compositions that embody her thrilling, hot improvisations.
Kokubu was a teacher featured in NHK Television for jazz pianist courses and has regular programs in both TV and radio. She is currently a visiting professor in Heisei College of Music and SHOBI College of Music as well as the cultural ambassador of Kawasaki City in Kanagawa Prefecture.
The 1966 Quartet is known to perform covers of western music based on classical techniques. The female group comprised of Risa Matsuura (violin, leader), Yuki Hanai (violin), Haruka Hayashi (cello) and Aoi Tanaka (piano) incorporated “1966” into their name to mark the year the Fab Four arrived in Japan amidst the Beatlemania. Their debut album was Norwegian Wood—The Beatles Classics (2010) and followed it up with covers of Queen (2011) and Michael Jackson (2012), Help!—Beatles Classics (2013) and Abbey Road Sonata (2014). Their first compilation album, Best of 1966 Quartet, was released in 2015.
Born and raised in Cotabato, Merced-Misa has won several awards, notably the National Music Competitions for Young Artists and won two concerto competitions, paving the way for her orchestral debut with Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto in B-flat minor. She is currently an assistant professor of piano at the University of the Philippines’s College of Music.
Meanwhile, Ezra is lauded for his powerful portrayal of leading roles in musical theater. He has played Heneral Emilio Aguinaldo, the male lead in Tanghalang Pilipino’s Mabining Mandirigma in 2016 and played the title role in Aurelio Sedisyoso in 2017.
In the same year, he essayed one of the lead roles in La Estrella: A Night of Music and Flamenco. His accolades include the Best New Male Artist in the 2015 Aliw Awards, winning Best Actor in a Musical for his title role in Aurelio Sedisyoso: A Rock Sarswela in the 2017 Aliw Awards, and four other accolades which he won with his former group, The FORTEnors.
Aside from the concerts, the festival also featured the segment “Talk about” Murakami. Two award-winning film adaptations of his works Norwegian Wood and Tony Takitani were screened at the UP Film Institute as part of the “Watch” Murakami segment. The “Write about” Murakami Facebook campaign likewise announced the winners based on the content of their entries and number of shares and likes.