Thomas
Charles Marshall is from Ireland. He studied classical music from
childhood at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and the Schola Canortum
at St. Finian's College, Mullingar, Co. Westmeath learning piano, flute
and later pipe organ. From 1991 to 1994, he was organ scholar at
Emmanuel College, Cambridge University whilst also reading music as an
undergraduate. His first contact
with the Satsumabiwa was in 1994 when he met the biwa master Yoshinori
Fumon while working for a year in Japan. He decided to remain in Japan
and studied with Fumon until the latter's death at the age of 92 in
2003. Marshall performs both within Japan and abroad. He is a full-time
Satsumabiwa
instructor at the University of
Creation, Art, Music & Social Work
in Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture Japan. He still regularly plays the organ
and is currently preparing a programme for performance in July 2008.
THE SATSUMABIWA
The
satsumabiwa is a one of a number of Japanese lutes that fall under the
title "biwa". Other lutes are the gakubiwa, used in the imperial court
orchestra, the heikebiwa, played by blind buddhist priests known as
biwa hoshi of which the most famous must be the fictional biwa hoshi in
Lafcadio Hearn's "Kwaidan" Miminashi Hoichi.
The satsumabiwa was
the musical instrument of choice for the samurai of the Satsuma domain,
roughly present-day Kagoshima Prefecture and the southern part of
Miyazaki Prefecture. It's primary purpose was to serve as a tool to
refine and enhance oneself and ones own inner spirit both
aesthetically and morally. In recent times, its use as entertainment
has taken fore in the more modern versions of the satsumabiwa, the
Kinshinryu, Nishikibiwa and Tsurutaryu to what some regard as the
detriment of the heart of the instrument.
