Sat, Sept. 29

12:00 - 1:00

Admission:

$10.00 (Includes HST)

JEFFREY LUO, Piano

Twelve-year-old Jeffrey Luo has been studying the piano since he was five. In addition to the many awards, prizes and scholarships at local festivals, he won First Prize in the Canadian Music Competition of 2007 and 2010. The highlight of his musical life came in the spring of 2011 with a performance of Mozart’s Concerto No. 21 with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. The year before he gave his first public recital for an enthusiastic audience in Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island and prior to that, in the fall of 2009, he performed for guests of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to raise awareness for a new Dalai Lama Peace Centre planned for Vancouver. Most recently, Jeffrey was awarded the Third Prize and Honorable Mention Diploma from the American Association for the Gifted and Talented International Young Musicians Festival “Passion of Music 2012” in New York City.
 
Apart from his achievements as a pianist, he has also won awards in the field of mathematics -- namely, a Certificate of Merit in the 2011 Mathematics League Contest as well as a Top Ten Winner at the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences Contest.  He is also a serious chess player, enjoys skiing and golf and in the fall of 2012 will begin Grade 7 at Collingwood School in West Vancouver.

Jeffrey began his piano studies with Sasha Starcevitch, and for the last four years has been studying with Kenneth Broadway and Ralph Markham.  He is looking forward to the 2012/13 season when he will again perform with the Vancouver Symphony.

Sat, Sept. 29

7:00 - 9:30

At Qualicum Beach Civic Centre

Admission:

$16.00 (Includes HST)

TAKiO ITŌ and THE TAKiO BAND                                                    

AN EVENING OF JAPAN/CANADA FRIENDSHIP AND COLLABORATION                                                     

Vocalist TAKiO ITŌ has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in Japan modernizing and internationalizing that country’s traditional folk music by creating innovative arrangements that mix elements of rock, jazz and Latin-American music with the traditional Japanese forms and blend Western instruments with Japanese instruments. Mr. Itō is eager to perform in coastal British Columbia as an expression of gratitude for Canada's contributions to the earthquake/tsunami relief and recovery efforts in Japan.

Don’t miss this unique and exciting intercultural ensemble featuring vocalists, traditional folk dancers, shakuhachi, shamisen, taiko drums, clarinets, piano, bass and drum set.             

Watch a sample of The TAKiO BAND in concert

Born in Tomakomai, Hokkaido (Japan’s northernmost island) in 1950, TAKiO ITŌ was brought up listening to the traditional ‘Oiwake’ songs of his fisherman father and the folk songs of his mother’s home region of Tsugaru. The youngest of twelve brothers and sisters, TAKiO often engaged in singing competitions at home, where his father would line up his bothers and sisters to see who could give the best performance. TAKiO’s singing outside the home started at the age of ten, when he began singing at ‘minyō sakaba’ (local pubs where folk songs are performed.)
After entering junior high school, TAKiO joined the ‘Tsugaru Suwako Ichiza’, a traditional folk singing troupe that performed in various local towns. He was often the singer used to warm up the audience with local songs before the troupe performed.
After finishing junior high school, at the age of 15, TAKiO travelled to Tokyo to pursue training in ‘minyō’ folk music. He subsequently won awards and championships in numerous minyō contests.
TAKiO however, began to have doubts about the traditional ways of the minyō world, in which training and performing were conducted in accordance with the age-old customs of the teacher-pupil hierarchy. So in the 1980s, he began a quest for a new form of ‘minyō’ that would use the rhythms and sounds of the modern day. He collaborated with musicians from different musical genres and backgrounds, before finally forming the TAKiO BAND in 1985.
The TAKiO BAND combines traditional Japanese instruments such as taiko drums, shakuhachi and shamisen with more contemporary instruments such as keyboards, bass, kit drums and Latin percussion. Fusing traditional and modern forms of music, TAKiO ITO and the TAKiO BAND have created a new minyō folk music style and travel all over Japan and the world for performances in a continuing effort to share and perpetuate the music and songs that constitute the grass roots soul of Japanese culture.