Hiroya Tsukamoto Comes to Cyber Café West

Many people have mentioned that they feel like they are traveling when they listen to a performance from guitarist, composer, and singer-songwriter Hiroya Tsukamoto. That is how the phrase “Cinematic Guitar Poetry” came to be associated with his work.

“I don’t want to force them to imagine a certain image,” Hiroya explains. “I treat music as just music.”

But he travels a great deal and composes music and lyrics during his trips and visits. “When I play a song I explain how the song came about, where I wrote the song, and then the audience can kind of connect the music and story.” As customary with good acoustic guitar playing, the listener hears the organic, periodic, little squeak of the fingers working the strings, which punctuates the appreciation of the sound.

The content of Tsukamoto’s music and his style of musicianship are inspired by influences including - but not limited to - Earl Scruggs, Japanese folk music, and the nueva canción of South America. His rhythms have aptly been referred to as “mesmerizing,” and, as it is with an alluring film, the experience of hearing him play can be similar to what happens to children when they enter make-believe with their whole hearts.

Born in Kyoto, Japan, Tsukamoto has lived for a number of years in New York City. He has made several appearances with his international group Interoceanico at New York’s famed jazz spot the Blue Note. He has played in varied festivals including the New England Folk Festival and the Rhythm N Blooms Music Festival in Tennessee, and performs more than 100 shows a year in the U.S. and internationally. He has released two solo albums – Heartland and Places - on the 333 Discs record label.

Tsukamoto’s path as an artist has been a circuitous one from the gift of a five-string banjo when he was thirteen years old to a Spanish major in college in Japan that unexpectedly led to a music scholarship at Boston’s Berklee College of Music seventeen years ago.

The story of his father bringing the gift of a five-string banjo when Hiroya was thirteen years old is an often-told tale for the artist. “I didn’t know what it was the first time I saw it,” he says, explaining that his father - a photographer who Hiroya says once wanted to be a musician himself - chose that particular instrument because he found it to be unique. “I liked the fact that nobody had it; I was the only one,” he laughs. His friends were playing guitars, and because he could not find a banjo teacher in Kyoto, a year later, so was he.

As for the language major in college, Hiroya’s mother studied Spanish and became such a close friend of her teacher that several members of the Tsukamoto family were invited to spend time in the teacher’s home in Mexico, where Hiroya began to become versed in the language. ‘That family had teenaged boys and they were playing guitar so well,” Hiroya describes. “Since high school I wanted to be a musician but my parents said, ‘You should go to college.’”

Apparently, language study was considered to be a more practical major than music. However, while playing in a music group in the Japanese college as a Spanish major, Hiroya was encouraged by the leader of the group to audition at Berklee in Boston. That landed him the music scholarship and affixed the artistic path.

Tsukamoto grew up listening to what he describes as, “all kinds of music since my teen ages,” and multicultural music continues to affect his composing and repertoire. He now appears most frequently as a solo performer – as he will in Binghamton – but recalls when he first came to the United States: “I arrived in Boston and I totally grouped with musicians from different continents.” That is when he formed Interoceanico, a group whose members come from - as the name implies - across the oceans, and includes the Latin Grammy nominee Columbian singer Marta Gomez. Interoceanico released three albums (The Other Side of the World, Confluencia, and Where the River Shines) and he says of the lingering associations, “I think those influences are still there.” Those international influences led to his featured appearance in four consecutive days of programming on Japanese National Television El Mundo show.

So what can the Cyber Café West audience expect? Tsukamoto says that some of the music will be based on the old and familiar, like American folk songs and some Japanese folk music. But some will be original and, perhaps, unexpected. Though he plays a simple solo guitar, Hiroya sometimes uses a loop pedal – a tool that filmmakers employ for matching spoken dialog to visuals or dubbing movies. With this tool, “I can create layers,” he says, making the solo performer sound, “like a large ensemble.” Another of his surprises is some audience participation using poetry; “I improvise with the reader,” he says. “It’s an interesting experience. Every time is different. It depends on how they read the poetry,” and he ends by relishing that, “The audience likes it.”

Hiroya Tsukamoto will appear in concert Saturday, March 4th, 9pm, at Cyber Café West, 176 Main Street in Binghamton, (607) 723-2456. Admission to the concert is $5. More information at hiroyatsukamoto.com.