Tsugaru Shamisen
Ryoko Itabashi
Collaboration Performance
October 1, 2016
Ryoko and her daughter collaborated with Yurika Murakami of Otowa Taiko member for traditional Japanese music and with Rebecca Cragg of Camellia Teas for live painting and live music.
Oto-Wa Taiko
26th Anniversary Concert
February 20, 2016
Ryoko was invited as a guest performer to Oto-Wa Taiko's celebrating concert. One of her pieces was her own composition, titled "Hisho" which was for Tsugaru shamisen and taiko drums. It was her first challenge to compose a collaboration piece, but receiving many compliments from the audience, the piece was well composed and successfully performed!
Carleton University
As a guest lecturer
October 22, 2015
Ryoko was invited to a Dr. Ramzy's class as a guest lecturer. She gave an hour lecture to share the Japanese traditional music, which she has been involved in many years.
The students enjoyed the lecture and Ryoko received many nice comments.
Buscar
at Mai, Montreal
May 29, 30 2015
Ryoko was selected one of the performers for a show "Buscar" held at Mai in Montreal. 12 performers presented their own performance and entertained the audience for 2 nights.
Asian Heritage
at Gatineau City Hall
May 23, 2015
Ryoko collaborated with a great sumie painter, Ms. Rebecca Cragg from Camellia Teas at this performance. Rebecca performed a live painting along with one of famous songs, "Sakura sakura" (Cherryblossom) played by Ryoko. At the end of the song, beautiful cherryblossm were drawn!
On the Rocks:
Winter in Hokkaido
February 6, 2015
Ottawa Art Gallery held winter celebration of Hokkaido at the city hall of Ottawa. The event started at 7pm on February 6 and Ryoko opened the night's entertainment playing the Shamisen.
Tickets were all sold out and there were 350 paticipants at the event hall on that night. The event turned out to be the largest Winterlude party that Ottawa Art Gallery has held. Ryoko was truly honored to be part of the great event. Click here for an article of the event reported by Ottawa Star
Musical Journey through Japan
January 25, 2015
It was a great launch to 2015. Ryoko put a full concert with Traditional Japanese music with Mr. Scott Kokichi Kusano of Toronto, generously hosted by the Embassy of Japan in Ottawa.
It was late July in 2014 when the Embassy of Japan contacted Ryoko for a request of an hour concert. Since Ryoko had had a dream to share traditional Japanese music overseas before moving to Canada, when the Embassy of Japan asked her for a concert, she already had a theme in her mind, which was A Musical Journey through Japan. Kokichi and Ryoko who both have been involved in traditional Japanese music for many years chose some festival and folk song pieces, hoping that the audience would feel as if they were travelling in Japan. After 5 months of meetings and rehearsing on Skype (because they live far away each other!), the concert turned out to be a great success! Rehearsing on Skype isn't so easy (!) because of a delay and bad connections sometimes, but they overcome the difficulties. The concert was performed by a multiple instruments; Tsugaru shamisen, taiko drum, Shinobue - bamboo fulte, Shakuhachi - bamboo recorder and a few metal percussive instruments, played by both Kokichi and Ryoko.
World Music Kitchen Party
December 12, 2014
As part of World Folk Music Ottawa, Ryoko perfromed at World Music Kitchen Party, held at Sunnyside Wesleyan Church on December 12th, 2014.
Eight musicians who had a different culture background got together and cooked songs that each musician brought, adding flavours from different cultures.
The result? It turned out very tasty! All the audience and the performers enjoyed this unique multi-cultural music concert. If you have missed it, don't worry! We'll have another one in 2015 as well. The information will be posted on both World Folk Music Ottawa's and Ryoko's website. Stay tuned!
Prior to the concert, Ryoko was interviewed
along with Alicia Borisonik, a founder of WFMO
International Percussion Festival
July 2014.
Ryoko participated in the International Percussion Festival in Longueuil in July 2014. It was a week-long festival and Ryoko put on a few shows during the festival week as a shamisen soloist.
Ryoko also collaborated with a band led by a famous percussionist, Mélissa Lavergne, which was a great experience.