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Curtis James Patterson

Professional koto performer, composer, and teacher based in Japan, Curtis James Patterson is a native of Naperville, Illinois. His first encounter with the Koto, a traditional Japanese instrument, was at Cornell College in 1981. Joining the school's koto ensemble, he was able to travel Japan while performing the instrument. “I had never left North America, so coming to Japan and performing the koto with Japanese college students changed the whole course of my life,” he says. Patterson returned to Japan in 1986 to further his education and worked as an English teacher in Tochigi Prefecture. During this time, he studied Jiuta, a more classical style of Koto music with accompanying vocals that became popular in the 17th and 18th centuries.

He then moved to Kyoto and studied under a disciple of Tadao Sawai (1938-97), a fellow musician who revolutionized the koto world, composing and performing works for both the standard 13-string koto and the 17-string bass koto. “Sawai’s techniques were extraordinary. He hit the top of the koto strings with drumsticks, applied the Okinawan music scale to the instrument, and did all sorts of creative things. I was also overwhelmed by his orchestralike arrangements, with twenty to thirty koto players on a single stage,” Patterson confessed. After moving once again to Tokyo in the early 1990s, he began studying directly under Sawai himself, obtaining a master's license from the Sawai Koto Institute and becoming the first non-Japanese artist to have graduated from the prestigious NHK (Japanese National Broadcast Company) master's program for young performers of traditional Japanese music.

As a member of the Sawai Tadao Koto Ensemble and Koto Performing Group SOEMON, he has performed in multiple concerts and released solo CDs such as "Oto No Wa" in 2002. He was also the musical director for the 2005 documentary film "Magnificent Obsession: Frank Lloyd Wright's Buildings and Legacy in Japan." In 2005, he began working closely with Shakuhachi Player Bruce Huebner. Touring as "Curt & Bruce", they presented their original compositions and arrangements at over 50 locations throughout Japan and by 2008, saw them in the Pacific Northwest for their North American debut tour. Their CDs include Going Home (2007), Tracings (2008), and Orcas Takes (2020). Later on in April, they were joined by singer Susan Osborn for their "Sakura Zensen Tour".

While Patterson continues to compose and perform koto on stage, since 2011 he has been the director of the Japanese Music Program at Yokohama International School where he teaches Japanese music to elementary, middle, and high school students. Starting from as young as Grade 4, students have the opportunity to learn the koto and shamisen. Some of the graduates of his program have won awards at the national level, made recording debuts, and have gone to study at institutions including the New England Conservatory, Tokyo Univerity of the Arts, and London's Royal Academy of Music.