This year’s Moonviewing evenings at the Portland Japanese Garden will be further enhanced by performances from three top musicians. Accomplished koto (zither) player Mitsuki Dazai will be featured all three evenings of Moonviewing at the Garden, together with two highly respected shakuhachi (bamboo flute) players, Larry Tyrrell (on Oct. 2 and 3), and Hanz Araki (Oct. 4).

Moonviewing, or O-Tsukimi, is a traditional Japanese festival which honors the full moon in autumn. Guests enjoy a quiet evening in the Garden, observe a candle-lit tea ceremony in the Kashin Tei Tea House, listen to exquisite Japanese music, and snack delicious little seasonally appropriate treats catered by Chef Naoko to complement their sake or tea.

Mitsuki Dazai is a graduate of Japan’s renowned Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo, Japan, where she majored in vocal performance in the Western Classical tradition. During the course of her studies, she felt drawn to the non-western traditions of Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Interest in these areas eventually led Mitsuki on a circuitous route to a discovery of traditional Japanese music and she began intense studies in traditional koto music at the Ikuta School of Koto. She is a graduate of the prestigious Sawai Koto Conservatory in Tokyo, where she was honored as a certified koto instructor. Mitsuki’s musical background is both diverse and extensive as a performer and innovator, arranging and composing koto music in different styles. Not limiting herself to music traditionally associated with the koto, her performances often incorporate western, pop, and improvisational elements and arrangements, challenging the many voices of the koto and allowing her to relate the koto’s appeal to a variety of audiences. She has performed solo and with ensembles throughout Japan, and in Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland and Eugene.

Larry Tyrrell is a composer and accomplished player of the shakuhachi. He began his studies with Masayuki Koga and later studied with Kohachiro Miyata and Katsuya Yokoyama. He was composer-in-residence in 1992 and 1993 with the Okayama Hogaku Ensemble. In 1994, he co-founded Moonbridge, an independent CD label. He produced “Floating Clouds” and “Zen Reveries.”

Seattle-born musician Hanzaburo Araki is the world’s only sixth generation shakuhachi player, following in the footsteps of his father, Kinko Ryu Grand Master Kodo Araki V. With no prior musical training, Hanz took up the shakuhachi, the traditional bamboo “Zen flute,” at age 17. Under his father’s tutelage, four months later he made his concert debut in Shimonoseki, Japan. Returning to Seattle in 1991, he has performed in the Seattle Folklife Festival every year from 1998 to the present, as well as for the Gates Estate, Seattle Art Museum, and the Seattle Asian Art Museum. In 2009, he was named Araki Kodo VI by his father in a small ceremony in Tokyo.

Moonviewing will be held on three different nights, October 2, 3, and 4 from 5:30-8pm. Tickets are $25 for Garden Members and $35 for Non-members and reservations are required by September 21. Sign up online at www.japanesegarden.com/events/moonviewing or call (503) 542-0280. Moonviewing is sponsored by the The James F. & Marion L. Miller Foundation and The Collins Foundation.