Bix & Marki　
Winter-Spring 2024 Tour Report

Bix had an exhibition and Marki had a class reunion in mid February in Kyoto, so we thought why not organize concerts in Kansai and play in Kyoto and Shiga. Bix left Tokyo on a snowy day worrying about delayed time schedule of trains and taking with her a full packed suitcase with paintings.

We also had a 5 days tour in March. We left Tokyo on Saturday 16th, to perform our new songs, created and recorded as our 10th CD during the pandemic. It had been 4 or 5 years since last time we had been far south-west in Japan, and we went first to Hamamatsu, then to Toyohashi, passed Yamaguchi, then went to play in Kurume for the first time and to Saga in Kyushu. The weather when we left Tokyo was an end-of-the-Winter weather, a little cold, but sunny.

Saturday 10 February 2024 　nora café
Shiga-ken Koga-shi Minakuchi-cho Sakoudo 292-2
Tel 0748-62-1157   https://www.facebook.com/noracafe.noracafe

Last time we came to Nora Café was in 2020. The owner is also a musician and as he did before too, he joined us on two songs, with his guitar, in the middle of our concert. You can see on the picture that we look all very happy, and also that there are cars outside… actually the café is in the middle of various fields: music can be played loud and with great pleasure ! Thank you to you all who came to listen to us.

Monday 12 February 2024 　UZURA Gallery
Kyoto-shi west of Sanjo-Teramachi Tel 058-234-3505
https://sound.jp/uzura/gallery.html/

Bix was exhibiting in Papa Jon’s café downtown Kyoto with her online-gallery group Artweast, and we played our songs one evening, in Uzura Gallery, which is very near Papa Jon's : we had pictures in a café and music in a gallery ! Uzura gallery is in an old Japanese traditional house. It really fit that our friends and poets Mayumi Kawaharada and Keisuke Sugiura read their haiku poems in the concert, accompanied by either Marki, or Bix or both of us. Beautiful evening with many of our old Kyoto friends too.

Saturday 16 February 2024 　IGUZIONE cafe
Hamamatsu-shi Naka-ku Takamachi 200-25  Tel 053-454-3131
https://www.facebook.com/iguzione.cafe.hamamatsu/

Iguzione is a big space and coffee shop where Mr and Ms.Iguchi welcome cultural events, for example an introduction to an ancient European instrument, a seminar about the country of Mali in West Africa, etc... Mr.Ippei Watanabe teaches French there and he was there with some students, as well as French teacher Jean-Loup Pètrequin. It was wonderful to see them again after such a long time. The audience was great and listened carefully to our songs, actually, many of them purchased our CD. Thank you so much, we will be back !

Sunday 24 February 2024 　café & gâteaux Knohd
Toyohashi-shi Ekimae-oodori 1-111  Tel 070-6533-6664
http://knohd.jp/   https://www.facebook.com/knohd2012/

We had been a few times to Café Knohd before the pandemic, and we were very happy to meet again the lovely owner-couple, feeling their creativity and openness in terms of cuisine, cakes and music space. The walls were decorated with framed photos of mushrooms, which made the atmosphere fairy-tale like, and thanks to the high ceiling, the sound was great. It was a dinner-concert, with a ‘galette’ (French buck-wheat pancake) , season’s vegetables, a dessert and our music. It was very relaxing and fun, and the audience was so bright and nice. Thank you !

This time in Yamaguchi we thought of just visiting Marki’s aunt that we hadn’t seen for a long time. She lives in the mountains outside the city. Before going to her place, we rehearsed a little, sitting on a bench, in the beautiful big square in front of Tokuyama station. A person listened to us, and he happened to be a producer of cultural activities in Tokuyama station (now the new station has a library, various cafés, stands etc.) - and he asked us if we wanted to come and play in a festival there, in the Summer. How nice !

On that evening, we went to say hello to the owner of Bar Cinema Paranoia which we had played at a few years ago. We had a great time and even jammed a little that evening. The Paranoia owner introduced us to a bar-owner who was there, a bar maybe suitable for our music, and he asked us to come and play in his bar next time we come to Tokuyama. Wow this city is calling us .... He was the one who took these nice photos of us playing.

We arrived the Kurume station at noon where our friend Kanayo was waiting for us. We discovered Kurume for the first time with her as a guide.

The air-B&B house with garden that we stayed at, called Kaede-An, was very spacious, calm, of old and modern Japanese style, we loved it and would like to recommend it !



Tuesday 19 February 2024 　TABI Recipe RORO
Fukuoka-ken Kurume-shi Kokubu-machi 524-3  Tel　0942-80-5228
https://www.instagram.com/buchi1224/　　　

We performed in a dinner-concert in this French restaurant called Roro. The restaurant is actually in Roro’s owner’s private house, an old style Japanese building made of wood, with tatamis. The atmosphere and the whole setting made our sound soft and warm, the audience was fantastic. 5 people were actually studying French: Bix spoke with them in between the songs and after the concert.

We played one of our songs together with a percussionist and it was great. We would be pleased to play again with him next time…

He is also a University professor in Kurume, specialized in children’s education with music, so Marki, who is also very interested in the same field, had a long talk with him and his wife after the concert. We had a marvellous time in Kurume city. Thank you very much to all of you !!

３月２０日（水） 　Café Brassens　
Saga-shi Gofuku Motomachi 2-24 north side of 656 Hiroba  
Tel 0952 97 9378   https://www.facebook.com/cafebrassens

When we arrived in Saga, a very creative and artistic person called Kaz, who is also a singer of French songs, a guitar student of Marki’s and a drawing student of Bix’s workshops, came to fetch us and we went to Café Brassens, that we know very well. The first people in the audience arrived at around 1 :30 pm and we started our concert at 2 pm. Here too, as in the other places, we played all our new CD songs and the audience was exceptional this time too: they listened carefully and it was also as they were absorbing the music. M.Sonoda had managed to have us presented in a very nice article in the Saga newspaper and we were overwhelmed by the heartwarming welcome we received, and that we always receive when we come to Café Brassens. Thank you so much to all of you !!

We had planned to play with its owner Mr. Sonoda (cello) and Kaz the famous song ‘Aux Champs-Elysées'. All of us played, including Ms Sonoda on tambourin, in between two sessions of our songs in the concert.

Many people in the audience were apparently people working in the cultural field or musicians themselves, so we played a couple of jazz standards with two of them after the concert.

Marki played John Lennon's Imagine at Kanayo's Airbnb in Kurume. The contents of the song are easy to imagine but too hard to realize.

We came back to Tokyo with the Shinkansen bullet train on the 21st of March, tired but happy. The tour was short but intense. We felt so surprised this time that the public was listening to our music with such concentration. We felt like hearts were absorbing it. Thank you so much !! We will continue to do more tours hereafter. Thank you for supporting us and for reading this tour report !!

28. Winter-Spring Tour 2024