Kazuo Ishiguro on British Folk Music

At the 2003 BBC Folk Awards, the British-based Japanese writer Kazuo Ishiguro said...

"The way I see it is like this… There is this kind of treasure chest you have sitting in front of you, and if you were American or perhaps Irish you might have opened it by now, but because you live here it probably hasn’t occurred to you to do so yet. Well, I would urge you to open that thing up and delve inside it, because I believe you’ll find there a sublime vision of life in the British Isles as it has been lived over the last few centuries; and it’s the kind of vision that you can’t readily get from the works of say, Dickens or Shakespeare or Elgar or Sir Christopher Wren. If you don’t open that treasure box I think you are going to miss a certain dimension, a whole dimension of cultural life in this country so I urge you to do it."

CELTRIP RADIO LAUNCHED

Recently through the Kyoto Field Irish Music Club 's mailing list I received good news about the Sept. 10th launch of CELTRIP RADIO. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is the first Japanese radio programme devoted to Celtic music. It's the brainchild of Kansai based band Si-Folk 's concertina and button accordion player Fumio Yoshida (pictured), who also masterminded the CELSITTOLKE local musicians project and runs GLEN MUSIC supplies. Yoshida san presents the weekly programme as an invitation to "travel the world of Irish and Celtic music by radio". He plans to add a new programme every Friday, but past programmes will remain on the site so we can listen any time. The first programme , introduces rhythms and instruments of Irish traditional music and dance, as well some of the Irish songs whose melodies are well known in Japan. If you can't understand Japanese you'll still be able to follow by making out a lot of English words. You can even hear 'Danny Boy' sung in Japanese (at about 75%). The second programme is due tomorrow, 17th September. Congratulations Yoshida san and good luck with this really valuable project.

P.S. if you click on the envelope at the bottom of the CELTRIP web-page you can e-mail Mr Yoshida with a request or comment. (Pls mention you read about it SongHouse.)

さて昨晩からになりますが、パソコンで好きな時間に聞けるラジオ番組を始めました。
私の拙い喋りで申し訳ないですが、ピュアな音楽をいっぱいご紹介したいと思っていますので、宜しければ聴いてやって下さい。CELTRIP RADIO URL↓http://www.beatshop.co.jp/glen_music/radio.htmlグレンミュージック　吉田　文夫