Ads used to be here

Art & Culture
Forbidden City
March Fong Eu
Treasures of China

Feng Shui with
Lillian Too
Lillian Too Profile

Horoscope
Horoscope
Horoscope Charts
Chinese Zodiac
About Dragons

Almanac
Grand Master Yap
Daily Online Almanac

Mind, Body & Soul
Mind, Body & Soul
Health
Traditional Medicine
Qigong
Yin & Yang

Style
Style
Maria Ma
Ada Tai
Arlene Tai
IncFusion
Nancy Bui
Esther Hwang

Join AsianConnections for
an Evening with
Renowned Jazz Musician and Composer

Keiko Matsui

with Asian fusion dining by

Chef Michael Kang

Sunday October 6, 2002
The Grove of Anaheim
Anaheim, California

AsianConnections.com is proud to be a sponsor of this very important event benefiting Asians for Miracle Marrow Matches (A3M)

This year's event featuring world renowned jazz musician and composer Keiko Matsui, benefiting Asians for Miracle Marrow Matches (A3M) is expected to sell-out the 1,100 seat premier venue at The Grove of Anaheim.

Dinner will be offered by Celebrity Chef Michael Kang of Five Feet restaurant in Laguna Beach and West Hollywood.

Billboard proclaimed Keiko Matsui as the #1 Contemporary Female Jazz artist in the country, surpassed only by Kenny G and Boney James.
Recognized as one of the finest keyboardist/composers in the world, the classically trained Matsui blends Jazz, R&B, funk and pop with a passionate artistry that is unique and infused with emotion.

Befitting her status as a world-class musician, Keiko currently lives a busy life giving concerts all over the world. When she was five, Keiko's mother - a teacher of traditional Japanese dance - took her daughter to her first classical piano lesson. There is a saying in Japan that if you take your children to their first lessons in the first June after their fifth birthday, they will keep studying for a long time. Needless to say, Keiko loved her first piano lesson.

After several years of private piano lessons from her first teacher, Keiko continued her music studies with the Yamaha Music Foundation. A top student in the Yamaha System, at age of seventeen, she was selected by the Yamaha Music Foundation to become a recording artist. She also composed her first major film score that year, subsequently starting a jazz group called Cosmos and recording four albums.

She continued her studies and graduated from Japan Woman's University (Nihon Joshidaigaku) majoring in the children's culture.

On her first solo album released in the U.S., Keiko wrote a letter to the American audience to introduce A Drop of Water:

Dear Friends,

My name is Keiko. I am from Tokyo, Japan. I started to study piano when I was five years old and began composing tunes when I was in junior high.

Since then it has been my dream to make my own album. I thought about it - how it should sound, how it should look, and so on, lots of images. Far away dreams. And now this is my first album. I know it is different from the one I dreamed about, but at the same time I feel it is exactly the same one. I just feel it.

You understand that it is impossible for a Japanese girl to imagine that she could have a singer like Carl Anderson on her first (or any) album, but after listening to the tune, A Drop of Water again and again, I feel it was decided to be this way a long time ago. I never told Jeff, the lyricist, what kind of story I wanted. He just wrote the lyrics in two days and gave the tune a name. That name became the title of my album. It felt like magic.

Kazu [my husband] told me that music sprang from the magic, prayer, ritual and tears of ancient people. I studied western styles of music. But Kazu's instrument carries different traditions. So he thinks a little different musically. He really likes this album. We listened to it again and again. It's a funny album.

Sometimes I forget this is my album. I know it is not really my album. This was given to me. Maybe that is why I want to listen to it again and again. I hope someone will enjoy this album like I do and feel like I feel. Then I will really be happy to have become a musician.

Keiko

AsianConnections is proud to announce that Keiko will be performing at the Asians for Miracle Marrow Matches (A3M) annual charity dinner. A3M has given hope to patients and families searching for the one miracle marrow match that could save their lives since 1991.

Every nine minutes someone dies from leukemia or lymphoma. Their only chance to live is a bone marrow transplant. However, bone marrow is ethnic specific.

For example, a Korean patient would likely find a match with a Korean donor, and a Chinese patient witha Chinese donor. In the past twelve years, only 370 Asians have received a life-saving transplant.

Thousands of Asian patients have died because they could not find a conor. A3M's mission is to build a diverse marrow donor registry so that every patient has a chance for life.

A3M is one of the few Pan Asian nonprofit organizations that give you the opportunity to reach the vast and multicultural Asian Pacific communities.

A3M outreaches to all the major Asian communities, registering over 80,000 donors since 1991. A3M coordinated more than 461 drives across California last year with bilingual recruiters in the Vietnamese, Pilipino, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, South Asian, Thai, Cambodian and Laotian communities.

Please join Keiko for what is sure to be a wonderful night of music, food, and philanthropy!