Koto Master Finds Freedom to Develop in US

Koto master Elizabeth Falconer first visited Japan as a summer exchange student in 1973. During that summer, Elizabeth became fascinated with the country and vowed to return. When she did in 1979, an English student of hers told her to check out the koto. That advice would end up altering Elizabeth’s life.

Elizabeth took to the koto right away, and began studying under Utayumi Nagane, and later under Tadao and Kazue Sawai. Elizabeth proved a quick study, perhaps because of her background in violin and the diligence with which she practiced in those early days. The koto, a relation to the Chinese zither that was introduced to Japan about two thousand years ago, has a strict, codified culture around it which Elizabeth excelled in through hard work.

Eventually, Elizabeth married John Falconer, a shakuhachi player, forming a group they call Duo-en. When Elizabeth returned to the US after a dozen years in Japan, she and John went through some fiscal hard times. But it was during those times, while Elizabeth and John struggled to make ends meet and raise their two adopted sons, that Elizabeth developed her ability to tell stories with the koto. Soon she was performing at libraries and museums to the delight of school children, who seem both soothed by the dulcet tones of the koto and entertained by the Japanese folk tales Elizabeth would relate.

Elizabeth learned and performed the koto under austere rules in Japan, then brought it to the US and innovated, finding her voice and her knack for storytelling. She sat down with us at the Panama Teahouse in Seattle to chat about her career.

JI: How did you begin playing the koto?

Falconer: When I was in high school, I wanted to go to France. But that program was full, so I ended up going to Japan for a summer. I knew nothing about Japan, and I just sort of went. I had a really nice homestay in Osaka … and I got interested in Japan from that. I didn’t have any idea how different the rest of the world could be. And so I started studying Japanese in Oregon when I went to college, and then I went to Waseda as an exchange student. At that point, I was 19 or 20, and discos were the in thing — it was the 1970s (laughs) — and it never occurred to me to do anything like koto. I was just trying to do all the cool things that young people do. I came back (to the US) and graduated, then went to Japan to teach English.

When I went back, I had a student who asked, “Why don’t you take up koto?” I went to a lesson and really liked it. I played violin when I was growing up, so I had a musical background.

I was really lucky with my teachers. I had some major teachers when I was there, and they all supported me. These were the people who were really good for me at that point. When I look back now, I was in my early 20s in a foreign country, feeling really independent, but it was nice to have someone mentoring you, a mom figure almost. (laughs) I liked it a lot, so I kept working on it.

JI: Was there any resistance to the idea of a foreign woman playing the koto?

Falconer: You know, people outside of the koto — like my English students who didn’t play koto — would be kind of stumped. “Why are you doing that?” Some people would say, “As a foreigner, you cannot really understand the Japanese spirit or heart.” And yet these people had never played koto themselves. But they felt this ownership of it, as if it were theirs. They had their three or four things they could say about koto that everyone knows to say, and they would listen to “Spring Sea” (”Haru no Umi“) at New Year’s time. But within the koto community, pretty much people were really accepting because they know what it takes — practicing and working on things. I did get a lot of support there.

The hardest part was wearing kimono. I always felt so disappointed, which is kind of a racist thing to say, but I didn’t look right. (laughs)

JI: You’re always playing in kimono?

Falconer: Mainly. Especially the first few years. My first teacher (in Hokkaido) was more conservative. John (her husband, a shakuhachi player) was there too. People wanted to put us together and have us play together. Now we play together and have a lot of fun, but then it was a high-stress situation with a lot of fights. We both wanted to be doing the Japanese thing the right way.

We went from Hokkaido to Niigata to Tokyo, changing positions as English teachers mainly. I was writing for The Japan Times about music and things, and I got to write about the Sawais in concert. They were so impressive. They really speak with their own voices, and their voices are not the same. You can hear it right away when you are listening to them.

When I interviewed them, they were both very nice, and Kazue said, “When you come to Tokyo, give me a call.”

I moved to Tokyo the following year, and I didn’t really know if I could call her, because she was so big. But I finally did call her, and she said, “Come on over.” So I started playing for her, and this came at a really good time, because I had learned the basics, all the traditional things, and she was like, “OK, now what are you going to do? Now you are going to make some music. Where’s your voice?” It was an opening of my mind.

JI: She was your main teacher?

Falconer: Yes. I think I could have studied regularly with Tadao too if I had asked him, but I just never did. I had seminars and courses with him where he was the teacher.

One thing he did was bring about new ideas to koto, and he also designed the bass koto (a 17-stringed instrument; traditional koto have 13 strings), which was the first new thing to happen to koto in centuries!

JI: What brought you back to the US?

Falconer: We had lived in Japan for 12 years, and John had gone from freelance translation to working in a securities company, which was a great position, but he didn’t like it. He was not made for that. He loves languages but he doesn’t like all the business stuff that goes with it. He was not very happy, and we were trying to figure out how long we were going to stay, and my teacher, Kazue, was very into internationalizing the koto and getting people out there. She said, “Go play!” A job opened up in Iowa that was a Japanese program with a koto ensemble at a small college, so I took it.

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