Koto player

Press, 8 January 1983, Page 2

Koto player

It is easy to feel clumsy near the diminutive, dainty Mrs Makiko Namatame (above), especially when she plays the koto. It is a centuries-old Japanese stringed instrument much like a harp but most of the world has never heard of it. Mrs Namatame would like to create new audiences for it and to acquaint musiclovers in New Zealand with its charms. That is one of her reasons for playing this week and next at the Kurashiki Restaurant in Colombo Street. The other is that she is a friend of Mr Russell Black and his Japanese wife, Kumiko. Mrs Namatame does not play in restaurants in Japan. She is a recorded concert performer and teaches the koto. Although many of the most famous koto-players are men, the instrument is more often played by women. It is one of the hallmarks of a graceful upbringing, much as the piano was in Victorian England.However, it is a difficult

art to master. Mrs Namatame has been ‘'learning” to play the koto for 25 years now.

She is concerned that traditional Japanese music is losing ground to Western music in Japan and she is fighting a rearguard action to keep the sound of the koto alive.

Mrs Namatame will return to Japan on January 13 after spending almost a year in New Zealand, most of it in Auckland.

Because she has only a visitor’s visa, she is restricted to charity performances but has played for Japanese societies in Auckland and Hamilton and at friends’ houses. She decided to visit New' Zealand because she had never been overseas and because she wanted her young daughter to experience another culture and to learn to speak English. Mrs Namatame has been taking lessons herself for seven months but still finds conversation-diffi-cult.

She has enjoyed her stay in New Zealand.