Musician June Kuramoto to be Celebrated in Program of Music at JANM on October 19

LOS ANGELES, CA – In Japanese, Ichigo Ichie translates to “One chance, one opportunity.” This is the theme of the Arigato event, a program celebrating the noted koto musician and 2024 NEA National Heritage Fellow June Kuramoto on Saturday, October 19, 2024, at 2 p.m. in the Tateuchi Democracy Forum at the Japanese American National Museum (JANM). Tickets are $50 ($40 for JANM Members) and are available at janm.org/events.

“This is my ichigo ichie, my one chance, one opportunity, and we need to grasp it, or it may be gone,” states Kuramoto, who is best known for her work with the groundbreaking Sansei band, Hiroshima. Kuramoto, is taking this opportunity to thank her friends and family and, in return, they thank her for being a musician who defined Japanese American culture and a gifted and generous artist who has given so much back to the community.

Chris Komai, former Public Information Officer at JANM, will emcee this multimedia tribute cosponsored by JANM, the George and Sakaye Aratani CARE Award, and UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center. Kuramoto and her family, friends, students, colleagues, and artists that she has collaborated with over the years will be featured in this special event.

Koto teacher and film director Shirley Muramoto and composers Derek Nakamoto, David Iwataki, and Dan Kuramoto will join Kuramoto in a conversation about her life and career of over fifty years. In a special panel discussion, Kuramoto and her siblings Tracy Okida, Julia Carlblom, and Eimie Des Marais will explore the Okida family’s early lives as both immigrants and Sansei growing up in Crenshaw, a hub of Japanese American life in the 1960s and ’70s.

Clips from Cruisin’ J-Town, a film by Visual Communications that is now part of the Library of Congress National Film Registry, will be screened, accompanied by a discussion with Kuramoto, Dan Kuramoto, and the film’s director Duane Kubo. Kuramoto’s protégé Emily Kinaga Wong on koto and her brother Brandon Kinaga Wong on guitar will perform Kuramoto’s signature song “Thousand Cranes.” 

The event will close with a tribute to Kuramoto’s contributions to the community presented by Doug Aihara, President at Aihara & Associates Insurance, and Chris Aihara, former Executive Director of the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (JACCC), and a recognition of her 2024 National Heritage Fellowship. A reception catered by Don Tahara’s First Street Cuisine will immediately follow the event.

June Kuramoto emigrated from Japan to the US as a child in the 1950s and was raised in the diverse Los Angeles neighborhood of Crenshaw. As a vibrant young kotoist, she was a featured player in numerous classical koto concerts in LA’s Little Tokyo. Influenced by soul music and rock ’n’ roll, she experimented with combining the traditional Japanese koto with contemporary music, eventually creating Hiroshima, a pioneering Grammy-nominated Asian American band that blended the sounds of the koto with keyboards, sax, drums, guitar, bass, and vocals. Over her five-decade career, Kuramoto’s recording credits for television, film, and stage include Heroes, The Last Samurai, and the musical Sansei. Her work as an individual and as a co-founder of Hiroshima has been honored by the Smithsonian, US Congress, State of California, and City and County of Los Angeles. Kuramoto served twice as an artist-in-residence at the JACCC. She served as president of the Koto String Society, a nonprofit group that produced shows featuring up to 100 koto performers accompanied by a full symphony orchestra. Today she gives of her time freely to teach a group of seniors and to mentor up-and-coming koto artists. Kuramoto is an in-demand solo artist at community events like the annual Day of Remembrance, a time to reflect upon the years of suffering by our ancestors during the war.

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About the Japanese American National Museum (JANM)

Established in 1985, JANM promotes understanding and appreciation of America’s ethnic and cultural diversity by sharing the Japanese American experience. Located in the historic Little Tokyo district of downtown Los Angeles, JANM is a center for civil rights, ensuring that the hard-fought lessons of the World War II incarceration are not forgotten. A Smithsonian Affiliate and one of America’s Cultural Treasures, JANM is a hybrid institution that straddles traditional museum categories. JANM is a center for the arts as well as history. It provides a voice for Japanese Americans and a forum that enables all people to explore their own heritage and culture. Since opening to the public in 1992, JANM has presented over 100 exhibitions onsite while traveling 40 exhibits to venues such as the Smithsonian Institution and the Ellis Island Museum in the United States, and to several leading cultural museums in Japan and South America. JANM is open on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday–Sunday from 11 a.m.–5 p.m. and on Thursday from 12 p.m.–8 p.m. JANM is free every third Thursday of the month. On all other Thursdays, JANM is free from 5 p.m.–8 p.m. For more information, visit janm.org or follow us on social media @jamuseum.