Akira Matsui, Kitazawa Hideta and Richard Emmert have been at the forefront of bringing noh theatre to the world through innovation and experimentation. Matsui Akira, a designated Important Intangible Cultural Asset by the Japanese government and a master of the Kita School of noh performers, has pursued a wide variety of international projects, placing noh in dialogue with opera, ballroom dance, classical music and many intercultural genre around the world. Richard Emmert is a performer, musician and composer who has produced noh in English since the 1980s for which he received the Koizumi Prize for 2019. He has often collaborated with his teacher, Akira Matsui throughout this period. The celebrated mask carver Kitazawa Hideta has created new noh masks for many of the projects undertaken by both Matsui Akira and Theatre Nohgaku, drawing upon his expertise in the carving of traditional noh masks.

The three Masters will join Jason James in conversation to hear about how tradition meets modernity, and West meets East, in the work of these singular figures in the noh world.

At the end of this discussion Kitazawa Hideta will undertake a book signing of his newly published book Noh and Kyogen Masks: Tradition and Modernity in the Art of Kitazawa Hideta.

About the contributors

Matsui Akira

Matsui Akira is an actor-teacher of the Kita School of classical noh based in Wakayama, Japan. He began studying noh at the age of 7 and took on numerous child roles. At age 12, he became a ‘live-in apprentice’ to Kita Minoru the 15th head of the Kita School. He has for over 50 years been active teaching, performing and collaborating with international performers in over 25 countries. In 1998, he was designated an Important Intangible Cultural Asset by the Japanese government and has been awarded four major cultural prizes from the Wakayama Prefectural and City governments. In 2016 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Royal Holloway, University of London.

Kitazawa Hideta

Kitazawa Hideta is a wood sculptor and noh mask maker based in Tokyo. He learned traditional wood carving of Buddhist and Shinto statuary from his father, Kitazawa Ikkyo, and later studied noh mask carving. He currently produces classical noh and kyogen masks and has been designated a master craftsman by the Tokyo Metropolitan government. Kitazawa has also created numerous shinsaku “new” masks for foreign language noh productions, notably those of Theatre Nohgaku, as well as for other noh-influenced plays. He has given workshops and demonstrations in Japan and internationally and a book on his work entitled Noh and Kyogen Masks will be published by Prestel in Autumn 2024.

Richard Emmert

Richard Emmert is professor emeritus at Musashino University, Tokyo, where he taught classical noh and Japanese and Asian traditional performing arts. Born in Ohio (USA), he is a certified Kita school noh instructor and has led noh performance workshops worldwide. Founder of Theatre Nohgaku, he has composed noh music for numerous English noh productions for which he was awarded the Koizumi Prize for 2019. He recently composed music for a French noh and arranged music for a Spanish noh. He co-authored a series of seven noh performance guides and authored the six-volume The Guide to Noh of the National Noh Theatre, both for Tokyo’s National Noh Theatre.