The very talented Hidejiro Honjo presented this awe-inspiring shamisen recital last week, and I’m still thinking about how great it was. The entire program was contemporary music, but I was struck by how different each piece was – the calmness of Elizabeth Brown’s Afterimage and Yuji Takahashi’s Kasukani to the overwhelming energy of Dai Fujikura’s neo. I was also impressed by how Honjo’s performance was completely integrated with the music of Toshi Ichiyanagi’s Rinkai-iki and Ushio Torikai’s TROIS that these contemporary pieces sounded “classical.”