High-voltage rockers, Hikashu, hit the National Arts Centre’s Fourth Stage in their Canadian premiere!

Hikashu combines rock, power pop and jazz, taking listeners on wildly sophisticated musical journeys. Improvising and experimenting with relentless punk-rock energy, this quintet covers musical territory from progressive rock to techno pop. Led by super-vocalist, Koichi Makigami the Japanese band’s innovative approach to improvisation and instrumentation has had a profound impact internationally and earned them followers around the globe.

Hikashu was one of the key bands to emerge from Japan’s New Wave of the late 1970s. Hikashu has followed a path from techno (before the Yellow Magic Orchestra) to noise/sampler improvisation (before Ground Zero) to jazz, folk and beyond. Hikashu has been anticipating trends and charting new paths for more than thirty years.

Today, Hikashu’s line-up consists of Makigami (vocals, theremin, cornet, shakuhachi), Freeman Mita(guitar, sampler), Masami Sakaide (bass, electronics), Kazuto Shimizu (piano, synthesizer, bass-clarinet) and MassaSato (drums, vocals). Their fifteenth and most recent album, Uragoe, was released in April 2012. According to Eyal Hareuveni in all about jazz: “Uragoe is a wild ride . . . the joy is guaranteed.”

See below for video of Hikashu in concert.

This concert is produced by A B Series in partnership with the National Arts Centre and Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville.

NOBUO KUBOTA, winner of a 2009 Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts, is a multi-media artist whose work includes sculpture, installations, video, music, and sound poetry. An original member of the Artists' Jazz Band and of the dynamic improvising orchestra, CCMC, he continues to blaze new trails in the domain of improvisational vocal music. He extends his vocal pyrotechnics to visual sound poetry, exploring the strategy of "intermedia." His recent work, "new calligraphy," involves transcription of sound scores. He lives and works in Toronto.

Julie Nesrallah is an extremely versatile singer, actress and broadcaster who dazzles audiences with her engaging personality, and her rich and deeply expressive voice. Miss Nesrallah is regularly engaged by leading opera companies, symphonies, festivals and chamber music ensembles across North America and abroad. In February, 2013, Miss Nesrallah was awarded the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal for her cultural contribution to Canada as the host of CBC Radio 2's national classical music program, Tempo. She is also the host of CBC TV Ottawa's Solo series. Miss Nesrallah has been the recipient of many distinguished prizes, including the Canada Council for the Arts Emerging Artist Award & Mid-Career Grant.

On July 1, 2011 Miss Nesrallah sang God Save the Queen for His Royal Highness Prince William and Her Royal Highness Princess Kate during Canada Day festivities in Ottawa on Parliament Hill. Miss Nesrallah has also performed An Evening for Peace in Montreal for Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan. She also sang for Her Royal Highness Princess Haya in Amman, Jordan, to launch an endowment fund for underprivileged girls to study music in Canada. Miss Nesrallah delighted her avid fans with her participation at the Ottawa Jazz Festival in June 2012, and has just returned from an engagement with the Bogota Philharmonic Orchestra, performing the title role in George Bizet's opera, Carmen. Miss Nesrallah is also the Executive Producer and star of Carmen on Tap a rogue opera company she created that performs Carmen in a pub every summer in her hometown of Ottawa, Canada.