Akiko Yano needs little time to know if a musical partnership will work. ¡°I can tell from the first sound I hear from someone I¡¯m thinking about collaborating with,¡± the 65-year-old singer and musician says over Skype from her home in New York.
Luckily for Hiromitsu Agatsuma, who, like me, is looking at Yano¡¯s image on a large television screen in a downtown Tokyo office while she relays this info, she realized right away that the 46-year-old shamisen player would make for a good partner. The feeling was reciprocated.
¡°I don¡¯t really want people to have a fixed image of Japanese traditional music,¡± Agatsuma says. ¡°I want to show that it¡¯s flexible. I think collaborating with Yano-san does that.¡±
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