The Okinawa Times newspaper company held the annual Ryukyu classical music competition in June this year, where one of our Kenjinkai members won the ‘Apex Award’ for Sanshin Performance.
During the course of one week, 139 candidates performed and 25 of them passed and won. Mr. Saburo Ochiai was the only foreigner (in the perspective of Okinawan) who received this honor.
Mr. Ochiai stated: “It is the beginning of every February, four months before the competition date, when they announce the year’s set pieces. That is not enough for me to master the songs completely, so in order to prepare, I practiced all prospective songs starting two years ago. One of the set pieces called ‘Jushichihachi-bushi’ was more than 15 minutes long and had many difficult finger positions. The other one was called ‘Akatafu-bushi’, an aria that is performed often by many great masters, and happened to be my Achilles’ heel. I tried to remember what the senior master Kinya Miyagi taught me. To be empathetic with every word, every single sound, to keep calm and play as usual. Sabu-san, Congratulations! From OAANY
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