By ELLEN ENDO
RAFU SHIMPO
As a teenager, she was known as the cute girl who played a weird instrument, but it wasn’t long before June Kuramoto and a koto would shape her identity as a vanguard of music innovation.
Fans and family gathered Saturday at the Japanese American National Museum’s Democracy Center to celebrate Kuramoto’s journey to America from Saitama, Japan at the age of six and her decades-long influence on smooth jazz as a member of the Grammy-nominated band Hiroshima.
Kuramoto recently received the 2024 National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the nation’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. Since 1982, this lifetime honor has been awarded to individuals and groups whose dedication and artistry contribute to the preservation and growth of the diverse cultural traditions that comprise this nation.
Chris Komai, who served as emcee for the event, explained that the rise of the band coincided with the Sansei search for their identity.
“The Sansei were trying to get their Nisei parents to open up about how life was for them,” Komai noted.
Filmmaker Janice Tanaka and a group of koto music enthusiasts known as Team Kotomoto organized the program, which consisted of a series of panel discussions and a performance by brother-and-sister duo Emily Kinaga Wong on koto and Brandon Kinaga Wong on guitar, who played one of Kuramoto’s signature compositions, “Thousand Cranes.”
As Kuramoto began to fuse classical and contemporary styles and veer away from traditional koto music, Kuramoto endured criticism from koto purists.
“My sensei was mad at me,” she recalled.
“It was hard for June to follow her music, but she continued,” said her brother Tracy Okida.
“You have to step out of the box,” Kuramoto advises. “Don’t be afraid of change.”
Former Hiroshima bandmate Dave Iwataki observed, “June always brings music from a meaningful place in her heart.”
Fellow band member Kimo Cornwell said that “Time on the Nile,” a tribute to jazz legend Miles Davis, “was an honor and blessing to write with June.”
Dan Kuramoto, who co-founded Hiroshima, recalled the day the band played at Howard University, a historically Black college near Washington, D.C., in 1991.
“I could tell there was something very different going on,” he said. The audience was connecting with this new sound. “She had the feel.”
Since then, Kuramoto’s koto style has simultaneously elicited positive reactions and defied description.
Pianist Derek Nakamoto commented that when he hears her play, “I’m reminded of how beautiful our community is. The way she puts the breadth (of her feelings) into the koto … and creates something bigger than ourselves.”
The program brought together Kuramoto’s siblings, including Okida and sisters Julia Carlblom and Eimie Des Marais. Like June, Julia and Eimie were given koto lessons, but both gave up after a year or two. Mastering the koto requires years of study.
The event closed with Kuramoto’s poignant rendition of “Cry of the Sea,” a plea for love, peace, and compassion featuring vocals by Miko Shudo. The song was composed by Kuramoto, Cornwell, and Diane Louie.
“Now that we’re here, making a statement about being Japanese American, Asian American, people of color, all people on the planet,” Dan Kuramoto emphasized, “there’s no turning back.”
The instrument that June’s classmates thought was weird has changed the world of smooth jazz forever.