A NEW CD: GO FOR BROKE! A Salute To Nisei Veterans

 

We have had a productive winter of 2017-2018. The Asian American Orchestra is proud to announce a new recording, “GO FOR BROKE! - A Tribute to Nisei Veterans.” The CD was released at our East Bay premiere performance of “GO FOR BROKE!” on February 18th at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center which also coincided with the opening of our 20th Anniversary display at the center.

GO FOR BROKE! A Salute to Nisei Veterans is the Asian American Orchestra’s musical commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the 1942 signing of Executive Order 9066 (EO9066) that forced over 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry into desolate internment camps until the end of World War II. Commissioned by the Zellerbach Foundation, GO FOR BROKE! honors the courageous Nisei (second-generation Japanese in America) soldiers who fought in WWII while their families remained imprisoned. The premiere performance of GO FOR BROKE! features poetry by Janice Mirikitani and includes traditional Japanese instruments—koto, shakuhachi, sho and taiko--blended with the jazz orchestra.

GO FOR BROKE! A Salute to Nisei Veterans has four movements. The piece starts off a bugle call - a call to duty and quickly morphs into a contemplative Japanese song - Rabbit in the Moon. The second movement features the spoken word by poet-laureate Janice Mirikitani, Glide Memorial Church co-founder and who was interned in a Japanese relocation camp, provides personal testimony about the camp experience. The third movement is entitled - Battlefield and Go For Broke which features the Japanese Taiko drums accompanied by Dr. Anthony Brown’s drums. The piece closes with “Last Post” which Dr. Brown rearranged.

The CD is available for purchase at our website at www.fifthstreammusic.org.