The Oyama and Nitta duo, known for their exquisite and powerful music performance with Tsugaru Shamisen (a banjo-like Japanese instrument), will come to the University of Kentucky’s Memorial Hall from Japan to hold a concert at 3 pm on Sunday, April 1. This is a kick-off event to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the gift of cherry blossom trees from Japan to the US. Tickets for this concert are now available at the Student Center ticket office: http://getinvolved.uky.edu/TicketOffice/ticketInfo.html  Tickets are $10 for the general audience and $5 for students.  You can buy them by phone or in person at the student center.  

You can watch their sample performance here. Download the flyer.

About the Artists

The Oyama x Nitta Duo is comprised of two of Japan’s foremost shamisen performers, Yutaka Oyama and Masahiro Nitta. Using a creative and innovative approach to the traditional sounds of the shamisen, the duo performs classic and original scores with virtuosic improvisations that display the versatility of the instrument. With roots in Aomori and Hokkaido respectively, Oyama and Nitta both began studying the shamisen at an early age and have won numerous tsugaru shamisen contests in Japan. Oyama x Nitta Duo performs regularly in Japan and abroad, delivering its unique sound to audiences throughout the world.



Yutaka Oyama, a third generation Tsugaru shamisen player of the Oyama school, hails from Aomori—the epicenter of rich folkloric music. Oyama is a two-time winner (2001, 2002) of the National Folkloric Music Association’s Tsugaru Shamisen Contest in Japan, and has visited many countries in Africa, Europe, and Asia as part of cultural exchange programs of the Japan Foundation which contribute to the popularization of Japanese culture. In addition to live performances, he has recorded albums, commercials, and video game software. In 2003, he formed the group Soothe for Tsugaru shamisen, Japanese taiko, guitar, bass, and drum. The ensemble has released three albums: Soothing (2004), Habitual (2006), and Bolinho De Arroz (2009).



Masahiro Nitta is a second-generation Tsugaru shamisen player of the Nitta school who began his studies at the age of 14 with the encouragement of his father Hiroshi Nitta. Nitta won the Tokyo National Tsugaru Shamisen Championship, Junior and Senior High School Division, and went on to win the Kanagi National Tsugaru Shamisen Championship twice (2000, 2001), as well as the National Tsugaru Shamisen Contest (2002). He has recorded several albums, including Shamisen Kid, which he released in 2000 while still in high school. Nitta has performed with a number of celebrated musicians including his father, Minneapolis-based guitarist Dean Magraw, the Monsters of Shamisen with Californian shamisen players Kevin Kmetz and Mike Penny, and the Esoragoto Band, which includes Japanese taiko, bass and saxophone. Nitta has toured extensively throughout Asia, Europe, and the US.

The Arab Spring: Are the Islamists Coming?

The Arab Spring with its largley civil, peaceful, and immensely popular character surprised many experts and lay observers. But an intense debate continues about the ideological underpinnings of the Arab Revolutions. Are they liberal, democratic, religious, or simply non-ideological revolutions? The recent remarkable success of religious parties in the polls in Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt has begun to cause anxiety among those who feared of these revolution as spearheading an Islamist takeover of the Arab world. Do these revolutions herald the entrenchment of Islamist politics in the Middle Eastern societies and states? The lecture attempts to answer this question.

Featuring

Professor Asef Bayat, Department of Sociology, University of Illinois

Agha Kan, Visiting Chair of Islamic Humanities, Brown University

Ihsan Bagby, Arabic and Islamic Studies, University of Kentucky

Hsain Ilahiane, Department of Anthropology, University of Kentucky

Diane King, Department of Anthropology, University of Kentucky

Sponsored by the College of Arts & Sciences and the Muslim World Working Group

Download the flier here.

WHEN: Friday, March 23, 3:00p.m.

Padraig Carmody Trinity College, Dublin presents "Another Bric in the Wall?: South Africa's Developmental Impact on Sub-Saharan Africa". The event is sponsored by the College of Arts & Sciences and the Department of Geography. The event is scheduled for Friday March 2nd at 4:00p.m. in Whitehall Classroom Building Room 114.

Download the flyer

The Latin American Studies Program at the University of Kentucky presents a conference by Joanne Rappaport, Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Department of Spanish and Portuguese Georgetown University entitled "Challenges to the Production of Indigenous Knowledge"

The talk will take place on Wednesday March 7th at 3:00p.m. in the Niles Gallery in the Fine Arts Library.

Joanne Rappaport received a Ph.D. in sociocultural anthropology from the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign in 1982. Her interests include ethnicity, historical anthropology, new social movements, literacy, race, and Andean ethnography and ethnohistory.