On Tuesday, July 19, 2016, TUA received two guests from the Yunus Emre Institute, the Turkish cultural center of the Republic of Turkey. Director Hüseyin Tuna and Mr. Masayoshi Ito visited the Ueno campus to discuss a plan for specific cultural programs.
※Yunus Emre Institute is the cultural and language organization of the Turkish government that is operated in 45 countries worldwide.

The meeting started with a greeting and a brief explanation of the cultural center by the newly appointed director. The director then expressed interest for future collaboration with TUA starting in the field of music and proposed a detailed program.

In the current fiscal year, the Yunus Emre Institute in Tokyo plans to implement various cultural programs focusing on music, dance and cuisine. These programs are not only intended to increase fans of the Turkish culture, but also to train specialists of these fields. TUA was asked to be engaged in the music programs. His proposal was that Turkish traditional musical instruments would be collected and tuned at the Turkish cultural center in Tokyo, and players of such instruments would also be invited from Turkey to offer lessons and special lectures at TUA for the students of the faculty of music.

According to Director Tuna, Turkey has a number of musical instruments which are quite similar to violin, koto or shakuhachi. If TUA’s students who specialize in such Japanese or European musical instruments systematically learn from the top performers how to play Turkish musical instruments which are considered to be closely-linked traditionally to those Japanese and European instruments, they will surely make progress in a short period of time. He said expectantly that the students would be able to compare their specialty instruments with the Turkish counterparts, which would contribute to broadening their views. He also said that a deeper exchange of culture would be promoted through concerts of such Turkish musical instruments between the Yunus Emre Institute and TUA as well as between Turkey and Japan.

Professor Arisumi Mitamura in charge of international exchange replied that TUA appreciated the offer as it was excellent in a sense that it would create a superior cultural exchange program by first-rate musicians, which is also highly beneficial for our students. Professor Mitamura then said while the two parties would collaborate in the field of music, TUA would like to expand the scope of exchange to other fields in the future, as the university has fine art students too, such as pottery or glass working.

Professor Yukio Uemura, who is a specialist of ethnomusicology, also appreciated the offer. “Let’s discuss details and implement some pre-programs during the current fiscal year so that we could launch a full-scale project in the next fiscal year.”

After the talk session, the guests were guided by Professor Uemura through the Koizumi Fumio Memorial Archives where many archives including ethnic musical instruments are kept, and the No.4 Hall, which has a Noh theater. At the Archives, the group found one of the classical Turkish instruments called Kanun, about which they talked earlier.  Having reconfirming the past relationship between TUA and Turkey, the Turkish guests assured that they would further deepen collaboration with TUA.