JAPAN NYC Festival of Culture to continue

Despite appalling chaos back home, Carnegie Hall is to press on with exploration of Japanese culture.

As Daniel J. Wakin reports in today's New York Times, when Carnegie Hall announced Japan as the focus of this season's great festival of arts and culture, it did not seem an unusual step.  Now, it has tremendous significance.

As the home country struggles with disaster of apocalyptic proportions, Carnegie will launch a 40-event exploration of Japanese film, visual arts, design, drama, and music, in the second installment of its Citywide Festival Japan NYC.  No performers have withdrawn, and only one event, a panel discussion, has been cancelled -- quite logically so, in view of the title, which is, 'Innovating and Profiting in Contemporary Japan.'  As Clive Gillinson, Carnegie's executive and artistic director, sagely observed, 'All of us felt, as a topic, that wasn't what you'd want to be talking about right now.'

Performers include the Kodo drummers, violinist Midori, and the NHK Symphony Orchestra of Tokyo, while displays include Isamu Noguchi's set designs for the Martha Graham Dance Company.