Remarks by Consul General Kamo 

at the ABEYA’s Honolulu Concert

April 19, 2012

Good Evening! Aloha!

It is a sheer pleasure and honor for me to welcome all of you to this traditional Japanese folk music concert by the ABEYA Ensemble. At the outset of the concert, I would like to thank all the people who worked so hard to bring this concert to Honolulu. The Japan Foundation is sponsoring ABEYA’s US tour which is going to be concluded here in Honolulu after visiting 5 other major cities in the West Coast. The University of Hawaii is as always most thoughtful and helpful in making Orvis Auditorium available to the concert. And I am most grateful to this large and friendly audience for the musicians. A full house audience is a key to a most successful and exciting concert. So you will be rewarded. You will be hugely entertained by the ABEYA Ensemble and their music created by traditional Japanese music instruments, with full of expressive power and stunning virtuoso techniques.  

As David, our MC has just explained to us, this concert is held as part of the U.S. Japan Cherry Blossom Centennial celebration. You may wonder what connects the Cherry Blossom Centennial to the ABEYA’s concert. I will give you my answer later. Mr. Kinzaburo Abe will speak next and he may explain. I don’t want to sound repetitious, but let me say a word or two on Cherry Blossoms. This year marks the 100 year anniversary of the donation of cherry trees from Japan to the United States. Back in 1912, the then Tokyo mayor Yukio Ozaki donated 3000 cherry blossom trees to the U.S. They were planted along Potomac River in Washington D.C. as symbol of friendship between our two nations. In commemoration of this historic event 100 years ago, currently a nation-wide special campaign by the Japanese government for planting cherry blossom trees is getting underway across the U.S. Here in Hawaii, we already had a planting ceremony in Waimea, the Big Island this February which served as the very first event that kicked off the campaign. What is more interesting is the seedlings that were planted in Waimea were not just ordinary seedlings but very special ones. We grew them from seeds imported from Japan. Governor Abercrombie helped us import seeds from Japan and made it possible for us to grow genuine Japanese cherry blossom variety seedlings. If everything goes well, we will see their blossoms blooming several years from now.

Well I should have spoken much on folk music rather than cherry blossoms. Well, Tsugaru is a region which is located in the northern tip of Honshu, Japan. Tsugaru has well-known attributes. Among them, the three biggest ones are apples, dialect and folk songs. That is to say, Tsugaru people grow apples, speak their own dialect, and enjoy playing Jongara Shamisen. You will see what Tsugaru music is like this evening. To discover the other attributes, you should go to Tsugaru and get to know them hands-on. It is worth visiting. But you should be sorry for your trip to Tsugaru if you miss to see their magnificent cherry blossoms. The Hirosaki Castle Park in Tsugaru is arguably the best cherry blossom viewing site in Japan. It attracts the largest number of cherry blossom viewers each year. So if you plan to go there, be sure to be in time for cherry blossoms.

Once again thank you for coming. Please enjoy Japan’s hottest traditional folk music by the ABEYA Ensemble.