November 12, 2004

Back to the table of Contents Page

Classifieds

Palo Alto Online

Bittersweet interlude

by Mari Sapina-Kerkhove

Takeo Kudo hears music in the stories and images that surround him.

Reading about the internment of Japanese-Americans once inspired him to write a composition for taiko drums. A piece for clarinet and piano germinated when he witnessed the simple strength of a bonsai tree. And the story of Palo Altan Peter Sano, a Japanese-American who spent three years as a prisoner-of-war in Siberia, moved him to write an orchestral piece.

While reading Sano's book, "1,000 Days in Siberia," the University of Hawaii music professor said he realized it was something he had to translate into music.

"The book had a deep impact on me," said Kudo, also of Japanese ancestry. "These stories should be told because they are quite extraordinary."

The result was "Interlude," an eight-and-a-half minute piece Kudo wrote for the University of Hawaii orchestra in the fall of 2002.

The Peninsula Symphony will perform "Interlude" on Nov. 18 and Nov. 21 at Stanford's Memorial Church, as part of "In Remembrance," a special concert of works inspired by hope. Psalm settings by Bloch, Mendelssohn and Bruckner will also be featured, along with Eric Zeisl's tribute to those who perished in the Holocaust, "Requiem Ebraico." Stanford Symphonic Chorus will also perform.

The event should be noteworthy for a couple reasons: Peter Sano and Takeo Kudo will meet for the first time at the concert. And Stephen Sano, Peter's son, will take the place of Mitchell Sardou Klein in conducting the 90-member Peninsula Symphony during "Interlude."

The experience, the younger Sano said, will be both professionally and personally satisfying.

"The fact that Takeo will be there and that my Dad will be there will make the event very special," he said.

Stephen, who is music director of the 150-member Stanford Symphonic Chorus, was the one to give his father's book to Kudo.

What struck him most about the story, Kudo said, is the calm, matter-of-fact story telling, which very much reflects the Japanese saying "Shikata ga nai " -- "It can't be helped." But it also makes Sano's time as a prisoner of war appear more like a simple interlude, Kudo said, rather than a disruption in his life. The seeming incongruity had a powerful effect on the musician.

"It's not an emotional outpouring, that's why it amplifies the experience," Kudo said. "You're really struck with how bizarre life can be."

Kudo reflected the book's matter-of-factness with the "musical sigh," a melodic figure of two notes, which weaves its way through the entire piece.

"I got the idea that it would be an all-pervading motive in my piece," he said.

Sano, a Palo Alto resident for nearly 50 years, exudes that same matter-of-factness when telling his story in person. With his sparkling eyes and an appearance 20 years his junior -- he celebrated his 80th birthday in June -- Sano hardly reveals any traces of the ordeal that took the California native half-way around the world and back.

In 1939, the15-year-old Sano left his southern California (Imperial Valley) home for Japan to be adopted by a childless uncle. This used to be a common practice in Japanese society, when family members had no heirs to carry on the family name.

"I thought I'd be Japanese and live in Japan for the rest of my life," recalled Sano, who initially needed tutoring to improve his limited knowledge of Japanese.

Six years later, with the end of World War II imminent, Sano was drafted by the Japanese army and stationed in Manchuria, which today is Northeast China. After serving six months as a soldier, Sano's regiment was captured by Russian troops. The war was over and Japan had surrendered, but Sano and his comrades were kept in the dark about world events.

Even as they were put on northbound trains, the Japanese soldiers speculated they might be on a detour that would eventually lead back to Japan -- the war, after all was over. But Sano would not return for another three years.

"We were prisoners after the war," he said.

Sano spent time in the Siberian cities of Krasnoyarsk and Stalinsk, where he worked in coal mines with Russian civilians. Sano remembered having good relations with the Russians, who suffered equally from the lack of food and the bitter cold.

Even though he still remembers the humiliation he felt, Sano said starvation, frost and hard labor were his major concerns. And there was always the hope of return.

"The other thing that was on our minds was when we would go home," he said. "We always thought we would be released if we stayed alive."

But staying alive wasn't easy. By the winter of 1947 Sano was so exhausted from malnutrition that he collapsed in the snow and stayed in a field hospital for five months. The following year, a bout with malaria -- Sano still wonders whether he contracted it from the squirrels he ate -- brought his long-awaited return to Japan.

After four years in Japan, with the planned adoption never having gone through, Sano returned to the United States. During the 13 years Sano had been away, his family had experienced hardship as well -- his father had been sent to an internment camp in North Dakota, while his mother and his siblings were interned in Arizona.

But for Sano, the ties to his earlier life in California were still strong.

"It felt like coming home," he said.

Sano married his wife, Minako, in 1955 and moved to Palo Alto, where the couple raised Stephen and their daughter, Mary.

Stephen said hearing about his father's ordeal made a life-long impression on him.

"It amazes me that this is only one generation back and not something you read in the history books," Stephen said. "I could never see myself enduring what he went through."

Sano completed "1,000 Days in Siberia" in 1979, initially approaching the project as an autobiography to pass on to his children. After several failed attempts to get it published in the 1980s, his wife encouraged him a decade later to give it another try. The book was published by the University of Nebraska Press in 1999.

Another element of the book that struck Kudo was its relation to time -- 1,000 days. Inspired by an image of someone counting the days, the composer incorporated several musical elements representing time. Using counterpoint, he combines different melodic themes together much like the gears of an old-fashioned clock.

In the beginning of "Interlude," the elements fit together smoothly in a reflection of Sano's relatively untroubled youth in California, Kudo said. As the story progresses, dissonant themes represent Sano's time in Japan and Siberia. The composition concludes by interlacing the Japanese national anthem and "My Country 'Tis of Thee" -- a symbol for Sano's return to America.

Upon hearing that Kudo had interpreted his father's story, Stephen said he was surprised and delighted with the result.

"It's a beautifully written piece, it's orchestrated so gorgeously," he said.

Mari Sapina-Kerkhove can be e-mailed at msapina-kerkhove@paweekly.com.

What: "In Remembrance," presented by the Peninsula Symphony and Stanford Symphonic Chorus. The program will open with Takeo Kudo's "Interlude," an orchestral composition inspired by Peter Sano's literary account of his experience as a Japanese P.O.W. The concert will also feature Eric Zeisl's "Requiem Ebraico." Several Bay Area cantors will participate, including Kay Greenwald of Congregation Beth-Am in Los Altos Hills.

Where: Stanford's Memorial Church

When: Nov. 18 at 8 p.m. and Nov. 21 at 1:30 p.m.

Cost: Tickets are $20.

Info: Tickets can be ordered on-line at www.peninsulasymphony.org or by calling (650) 941-5291.

E-mail a friend a link to this story.