Oboe Renaissance

Yet another idea inspired by Metropolis Magazine, after reading a small listing for an oboe soloist performing near the Shinjuku area of Tokyo, I decided to get some tickets for the show. Kazuhiro Miyamura was the oboist playing and although he is not well known yet, he has a growing reputation as an artist. He began playing in his early teens and now does solo shows with piano and guitar accompaniment, while also offering private lessons.

The performance was held at the Tokyo Opera City, completed in 97, and was a very clean and pretty building inside as well as out. Although it was mid-November, they already had many Christmas decorations up.

Opera City was running a theme of "Bach -> Contemporary" where they had different soloists come in and play a few J. S. Bach as well as a little contemporary music (as the name suggests). Other artists we saw coming after Miyamura were flute and french horn soloists.

As for Miyamura himself, he had a 5 piece set list of the following songs:

• Concerto for oboe and piano, in D minor
• 3 movements (including andante and presto)
• composed by Marcello and edited by Bach & Miyamura
• This song group really was beautiful and it meant a lot to me since I had played both the andante and presto movements for my state music test back in high school, having practiced both more than anything else I knew each part of the song and Miyamura's changes to it sounded great and made them extra lively.
  
• Variations on "Brindisi"
  
• by S. Yamazato
• Italian sounding waltz which both of us really enjoyed
• Aulodia per Lothar
• by B. Maderna
• Contemporary piece, very dissonant and neither of us liked it
• Tenshi-no-nioi: Inspired by M. Passion
• by Kusakabe
• Again a contemporary piece I didn't really care for
• Sonata in G Minor
• by J. S. Bach
• Sounded great!

In the middle of his performance Miyamura went on to explain how he was excited to be playing both classical and contemporary music which are both passions of his. He also made a point of explaining how difficult the oboe is and how there aren't many players because of it. Throughout the show he had piano and/or guitar accompaniment.

blurry (pictures weren't allowed but I snuck one)

After receiving applause and a bouquet of roses, Miyamura returned for 2 encores. I can't quite remember the titles for them but I really liked them both, they were familiar so I'm going to try and figure out what they were sooner or later.

On the way out I asked if it was possible to buy a recording of the performance, which is when the staff answered "no, but would you like to meet Mr. Miyamura". So I went backstage to say hello and I told him in Japanese that I had come from New York and also play the oboe.

Overall it was clear by the end of the night, that I don't really like hearing contemporary music but the classical pieces by Bach were really a treat to listen to.

With all of this in mind and hearing the oboe for the first time in awhile, I have decided that I will return to playing & practicing once I get home for Christmas!