Sendai Lesson

The sisters are seen here with their Sensei during a practice in Sendai. The sisters travel about 1.5 hours from Yamagata to take their lesson. They are preparing to record their solos for selection for the Tokyo national competition next April and for December's Osaka competition. The sisters also have quite a few performances coming up in December so they will be very busy.

Yamanobe Culture Festival

In these pictures, you can see the sisters performing at the Yamanobe Town (山辺町) culture festival (文化祭). Yamanobe is a beautiful mountain town in the suburbs of Yamagata city. Afterwards, the sisters stayed and ate dinner and talked with the audience. There were about 100 people in attendance.

Three in a row

The sisters finished their performance at 9 pm tonight. It was their third one in a row, and they are a little bit tired. The audience was really fun and loud at tonight's performance. Next stage is on Wednesday night. The sisters will have one day off. They will begin preparing a Christmas song for a Christmas performance in December and for the Osaka competition also in December.

Sunday Live Stage

The sisters performed for a 1 hour performance at Zao Onsen at a beautiful pension. They performed the first stage in Kimono then took a break and played the second stage in jeans. The "cafe concert" was sold out and everyone enjoyed drinking coffee, listening and interacting with the three sisters. The sisters played a lot of songs including Agatsuma, and Yoshida Brothers songs. In these photos, you can see the changing leaves at Zao Onsen and the sisters preparing to go out for the first stage.

October 26th Live

On October 26th at 2:00pm, you can see the sisters play at the beautiful resort town of Zao Onsen (蔵王温泉) in Yamagata. It is a reservation only performance. Make your reservation at Der Barte pension at 023-694-2225. There is a small fee but a dessert with coffee or tea is included. A good chance to see the sisters up close!

Audience

The sisters played in front of a large crowd at a hot spring hotel in Yamagata. They received a beautiful bouquet of flowers (thank you!) from someone in the audience. The audience seemed to know the songs they were playing and were very interested in their background.

Shana

Shana plays her gameboy DS while waiting for her sisters to get ready for their performance tonight. The sisters will be competing in the Osaka national tsugaru shamisen contest in December.

Experience

In this photo, Brenna helps Shana tune her shamisen before the next song. The tsugaru shamisen must be re-tuned depending on what piece is to be played. Shana is still a little small to reach up and do it herself but is learning by experience on stage how to do it quickly. Sometimes a string will break and must be replaced quickly on the fly. The tsugaru shamisen is relatively fragile instrument since most of the critical parts are natural. The three sisters have just had three performances in three days and are in need of some "down time" and practice time. Their next performance will be next Monday night.

Private Party

The Sisters performed this evening for a private re-union party in Yamagata city. They didn't have a very long rehearsal but played well. Tomorrow will be another night time stage, their third in a row!

Nan'yo performance

The Sisters played in near Nan'yo city, Kawa-nishi. There were about 100 people there. They played for a long 45 min and were tired afterwards. Kyla and Brenna played Yosare Bushi together on stage for the first time. The sisters were treated very well with lots of food, drinks and flowers. you can see the just before the curtain goes up!

preparation

The sisters are preparing for a stage in Yonezawa, Yamagata tomorrow afternoon. Kyla and Brenna will perform Yosare Bushi together for the first time.

Magazine article

The three sisters appeared in a Tokyo Families magazine article for the month of October. Click here to read it. Tokyo Families magazine is a free upscale magazine for expat families in the Tokyo area.

Yosare Bushi

Below is an Mp3 file you can download to listen to Kyla playing Yosare Bushi during her practice time. The sisters will have a really busy weekend with three straight performances in three days. They will have to be on stage for 45 min in one performance which is longer than usual. Recently, Kyla has been studying the history of some of the songs they play so she can teach the audience. It is a little strange I think for Japanese to learn something of their own traditional music from a foreigner.
KylaRyan.mp3