James and I are headed to this on the 15th. For the art crowd, you may have heard of Ichiyanagi’s wife from 1956-63, Yoko Ono.

Ensemble Origin at Zankel Hall
March 14th and 15th, 7:30pm

Featuring the Shinnyo-En Chorus of Japan and Music by the Seminal Japanese Avant-Garde Composer Toshi Ichiyanagi, Ensemble OriginÂ’s Founder and Artistic Director

Presented with support of The Japan Foundation
and the cooperation of the Consulate General of Japan in New York
and the Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies at Columbia University.

Sponsored by Shinnyo-En

In 1998, fifty years into a storied career, the Japanese composer Toshi
Ichiyanagi undertook an ambitious project with a two-part mission: to
reconstruct ancient instruments preserved in Japan and to employ them in the
creation of a new kind of music. He and a diverse network of collaborators
would present the music‹performed on the restored Silk Road instruments‹in
concerts around the world. By 2006, with assistance from the Buddhist order
Shinnyo-en (as part of their contribution to the arts), the project had
succeeded in recreating 14 kinds of ancient musical instruments, including
examples from China and other parts of Asia, and in assembling a team of
musicians who could play those instruments, under the name Ensemble Origin.