None so rare as fiddlers fair

Australian fiddlers have inspired a Japanese festival with their sense of fun as much as their wizardry, writes Lee Anthony

IN a culture where almost every child learns piano or violin, Australian fiddlers have shown the Japanese that infusing a bit of fun into music doesn't diminish high-quality playing.

Some of this country's leading non-classical violinists took a bow in Osaka last Monday as they inaugurated the Japan Fiddle Festival, an event inspired by their performances and educational efforts in Australia.
Marcus Holden's multi-genre Fiddlers Feast (until recently known as Fiddlers Festival) and jazz/blues players Nigel McLean and George Washingmachine joined some of Japan's top fiddlers at Osaka's Azalea Hall Cultural Centre for the one-day event.

Japanese performers included celtic-rock fiddler Takehiro Kunugi, traditional Irish violinist Hidenori Omori and the Japan Fiddle Club Band. McLean performed with popular Melbourne-based jazz pianist Joe Chindamo.

The festival was part of the official 2006 Australia-Japan Year of Exchange program, a cultural and educational promotion of more than 100 events held in the two countries.

For Fiddlers Feast the event was the culmination of a series of events beginning in 1998 when they headed up a recording featuring an eclectic mix of virtuoso fiddle players. A guest at the CD launch, Lucia Okamura, was inspired to suggest the line-up get together regularly and she subsequently organised the successful annual Hawkesbury National Fiddle Festival at Clarendon, NSW, which began in 2000. The organisers of the Japan Fiddle Festival were, in turn, guests at her festival; they visited the Australian event several times and were so impressed they have frequently invited festival performers to Japan.

"The Japanese are very appreciative of great acts," says Okamura, who also helped establish the Osaka festival. "The audience wanted to get the best seats and literally ran into the hall as the door opened. There was a Japanese fiddler there Takehiro Kunugi who opened the act - very impressive, amazing presence and amazing hair; obviously a bit of a pop star as he had a queue miles long at autograph time."

Eleven Australian musicians made up half the program, which included sold-out workshops on jazz and Irish fiddling. "Having seen the fiddle culture in Japan since about 1990, it's amazing the depth of talent it has developed in the past decade - which is not surprising, as this is a culture where every kid learns either piano or violin from a very early age," she says.

"A good violinist is a dime in a dozen in Japan, so Australians do have to pull something out of the bag to shine."

Japanese audiences responded enthusiastically to the Australian style. "How fantastic, having Aussie fiddlers together with their Japanese counterparts, jamming together and developing a real sense of a global fiddle community," says Holden.

"It's such an eye opener for all of us. The similarities and differences in style and approach ... it was a real chance for the world to hear Australian fiddling as a legitimate, distinct style."

Initially the Osaka audience was reserved - as are most Japanese audiences - but soon got into the swing of the music: "George Washingmachine had them dancing. They have really good jazz and Irish fiddlers already but we are kind of different in that we play like Australians."

Holden says a similar thing happened in France when Fiddlers Feast was a headline act at the popular Festival InterCeltique in Brittany, France, last month, an event which draws around 750,000 people and this year featured an Australian theme.

The Osaka event was a learning experience for the Japanese audience, says McLean: "The masterclass I held was packed to capacity and they were very interested in my career and why I chose to be diverse in music instead of focusing on one genre."

Okamura says she and Japanese festival director Keisuke Sasaki have developed a long-term fiddle-related partnership.

"It was quite amazing as when I was organising the inaugural Hawkesbury event in 2000, I got this rather dreamy email from this Japanese guy stating that it was his dream to promote Australian fiddlers in Japan. He would have had no idea the organiser of the Hawkesbury event was Japanese then. Rather than continuously answer his emails, I told him to 'just come' - and he did.

"In 2001, he asked me who he should present first to Japan, and I suggested the Fiddlers Feast as they are multi-genre. After two tours with Fiddlers Feast, he then invited McLean, who travelled alone to workshop and perform with local jazz fiddle groups. Other fiddlers who have toured Japan within our collaboration are Shen Pangeng (a Melbourne-based erhu player) and Andrew Clermont."

The Osaka festival looks to be the beginning of even more beautiful friendships. Okamura says she has been approached by the director of several large Japanese music festivals to discuss further collaborations.