Japan Week

SF Japantown's Summer Festival - Presented by GenRyu Arts

Chiziru Kineya

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Chizuru Kineya started studies at the age of six and is a nagauta shamisen artist, a master of the instrument accredited by the legendary Kineya Shamisen family. She performs with numerous contemporary classical musicians in regular engagements at the National Theater of Japan and in the mainstream Japanese music and performing arts scene, and teaches workshops at regional schools. Her US debut with the Chicago Asian American Jazz Festival in 2011 marked her first collaboration with Chicago blues musicians. Kineya has regularly collaborated with Tatsu Aoki and GenRyu Arts in San Francisco since her first Taiko Legacy engagement in 2005. Her 2012 Tokyo Shamisen CD project, Toyoakimoto, features Aoki.

Francis Wong

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Francis Wong was dubbed one of “the great saxophonists of his generation” by the late jazz critic Phil elwood. Few musicians are as accomplished as Wong: for over two decades he has performed his innovative brand of jazz and creative music for audiences in north America, Asia, and Europe. A prolific recording artist, Wong is featured on more than forty titles. www.franciswong.net

Kioto Aoki

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Kioto Aoki is a performing artist specializing in Japanese traditional music, playing taiko, tsuzumi, and shamisen. She has been performing on stage since the age of 7, touring nationally and internationally, and is active within the experimental and creative music scene in Chicago and the Bay Area as a member of Asian Improv aRts Midwest (AIMRW) and Tatsu Aoki’s The Miyumi Project.  Kioto is an instructor at Tsukasa Taiko, a program of AIRMW as well as curatorial manager of the Arts Incubation program.  Notable projects include Yoko Ono’s Skylanding Project, and the  Taiko Legacy/Reduction series at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. She is a past and current recipient of the Ethnic and Folk Arts Master Apprentice Program from the Illinois Arts Council.
Kioto is also a conceptual photographer and experimental filmmaker who also makes books and installations engaging the material specificity of the analogue image and image-making process. She received her MFA and BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is a 2017-2018 HATCH artist in resident at the Chicago Artists Coalition. https://kiotoaoki.com/