was a Japanese musician.
As a Biwa player
Tsuruta specialized in the ancient pear-shaped plucked lute called
biwa, and also sang. She developed her own form of the Satsuma biwa, which is sometimes referred to as Tsuruta biwa. This biwa differs from the traditional Satsuma biwa in the number of frets, construction of the head, and occasionally a doubled 4th string. The additional frets allows a wider range of notes to be played which makes it possible to perform modern and western compositions.
Tsuruta achieved international attention for her
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
premiere performance, in November 1967, of
Tōru Takemitsu
was a Japanese composer and writer on aesthetics and music theory. Largely self-taught, Takemitsu was admired for the subtle manipulation of instrumental and orchestral timbre. He is known for combining elements of oriental and occidental phil ...
's ''
November Steps
is a musical composition by the Japanese composer Tōru Takemitsu, for the traditional Japanese musical instruments, '' shakuhachi'' and '' biwa'', and western orchestra. The work was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic on the occasion of ...
'' with the
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic, officially the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Inc., globally known as New York Philharmonic Orchestra (NYPO) or New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, is a symphony orchestra based in New York City. It is ...
, under the direction of
Seiji Ozawa (with shakuhachi player
Katsuya Yokoyama
was a Japanese musician who played the ''shakuhachi'', a traditional vertical bamboo flute.
Early life
He was born in Shizuoka Prefecture in 1934 and studied Kinko-ryu and Azuma styles of music with his father, Rampo Yokoyama, and grandfather, ...
).
She has many well known students, such as
Yukio Tanaka,
Yoshiko Sakata, and
Junko Ueda
is a feminine Japanese given name.
Possible writings
Junko can be written using different kanji characters and can mean any of the following:
*純子, "pure, child"
*順子, "order, child"
*淳子, "pure, child"
*潤子, "rich/favor/wet, child"
...
.
See also
*
Biwa
Links
Schwebeablaut (Kinshi Tsuruta – Biwa, the World of Tsuruta Kinshi (1995))
References
1911 births
1995 deaths
20th-century Japanese musicians
Japanese women musicians
20th-century women musicians
{{Japan-musician-stub