Profile

Kakujo Nakamura

Born in 1957 in Miyazaki city, Japan, Kakujo Nakamura graduated from the Waseda University Faculty of First Literature as an Art History major.

At the age of fifteen, he was deeply moved by a recording of Pablo Casals, the renowned cello player. This became the starting point of his music activity.

Simultaneously with his enrollment in the university, he started learning the Biwa (Japanese lute) from Kyokuko Fujimaki, the first of the Chikuzen Biwa School. Later, he converted to the Satsuma Biwa School and became a student of Kinshi Tsuruta.

During the process of his studies of Biwa music, he keenly felt a necessity to acquire the skill of instrumental adjustment as a part of his music activity, and devoted five years to the manufacture of the Biwa, beginning when he was twenty-seven years old.

At the age of thirty-three, he resumed his stage performances.

Perceiving that the source of Biwa performance lies in the classical story-telling music, he has continued studying classical pieces through self-organized solo performances, under such titles as “Workshop to Know Biwa,” “Listening to the Sound,” “The Charm of Biwa: the Story-Telling Music,” “Kakujo Nakamura Biwa Recital” etc.

In recent years, he has been actively engaged in writing songs and composing tunes. Throughout the process, he has been seeking new materials in the world of story-telling, which has largely been confined to tragedy. At the same time, by establishing new musical styles such as Shi-Kyoku (poetical tunes) and Ren-Ei (aria sequences), he has been aiming at creating a new world of Biwa story-telling, and at expanding expression in the Biwa music.

In the field of modern music, he has been invited to a number of music festivals and international events where he has performed as a soloist in the works of Toru Takemitsu, such as “November Steps,” “Eclipse,” and “Autumn,” which have been performed in the Pacific Music Festival, Saito Memorial Festival in Matsumoto, Tanglewood Music Festival in the U.S. A., and at the Nagano Winter Olympics.

Together with Katsuya Yokoyama, a Shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute) player, he has also been invited repeatedly to regular performances of the NHK orchestra, and has worked with such conductors as Seiji Ozawa, Charles Dutoit and Christoph Eschenbach.