Milford chronicle., 1962-07-13
Bring Music 10 Jopon
BY JOHN RODERICK


were sung to sleep with Japanese
lullabies. But little Michi Mura-
yama dropped off to the music of
Beethoven concerto played on
records by Mischa Elman.
AS long as she can remember,
music has been a part of Michi
Murayama's life.
This slender, ella sic ALLY
handsome descendant of Japanese
nobility, who also is a grand
daughter of the founder of Japans
great ASahi newspaper is sharing
her enfhusiasms with a m us i c.
hungry nation.
This spring Michi welcomed to
Japan some of the worlds great
musicians and actors. They had
come to perform at the Osaka In
ternational Festival of Music and
Drama which she organized five
years ago. Each year since 1858,
as it's director, she has performed
the same, pleased ritual.
Her Programs Success
AS organizer businesswoman-
music lover she is one of the out
standing women of modern-d a y
Japan and perhaps the only wo-
man anywhere ito put together and
run a major arts festival; one that,
moreover, breaks even.
Her accomplishments verge ON
the startling in a nation whose
women got the vote only Is years
ago and whose menfolk still pre-
fer to see them lead decorative,
kimono-clad lives away from the
hurly-burly of business.
In any Western country, being
a woman, and one with such ap-
parent charnb and attractiveness,
would have been am asset. But not
in Japan.
II was told from the beginning
that / must expect difficulties and
that jealousy would be the great
est" she said. II have found this
to be absolutely true. Because
was a woman, there were many
men who became jealous of my
plans, tried to break them up and
make the festival a failure. They
wrote many hostile articles in the
papers and magazines.
Being a woman i'm Japan is
big handicap" she said ruefully.
But THE heartaches and the dis
appointments vanished as sh e
watched the curtain rise ON open
ing night on her first program in
1858.
The big, new auditorium her
mother had built next to the Asahi
Shimbun, facing the busy port of
industrial Osaka, was packed for
the gala initial performance. But
hardly anyone in the black-ftie
audience realized that for a long
time the festival had seemed i'm
possible to realize.
In the FIRST place, Michi who
had toured Europe twice visiting
the big festivals, found the ARTISTS
she wanted reacted with unexpect-
ed coldness.
When they finally agreed, their
fees were out of Michi's reach and
hong, difficult period of bargain
ing-by-airfnail ensued.
Once the artists arrived, every
thing went like clockwork. Every
minute of their early days i'm
Japan was planned and directed,
with no one lost, misliaid or ruffled.
Changing Her Name
The headaches of arranging a
music festival and mothering
troops of temperamental musicians
in a strange land have brought no
gray hairs to the youthful-looking
Mich.
But they may have contributed
to decision she made few years
ago to change the Japanese
characters in her given name
which mean beautiful know
ledge" to a more modest ''yet-to-
be-attain acknowledge"
The performers who meet Michi
for the first time generally are
somewhat taken aback. The busi-
nesslike correspondence they have
with her, her shrewdness in driv-
ing bargains, and the fact that she
is running a complex opera
tion lead them to expect someone
older, something of stern, old
battleax," as one friend put it.
Her Mother Powerful
Michi's beauty is that of t h
women of the old Japanese wood
block prints. She inherit's h e r
mothers sound business en- e,
one that has made. Mrs. Fujiko
Murayama powerful and rich in
her own right as head of the
Asahi Building Corporation which
owns not only the Festival Theater
but the modern Osaka Grand Hotel
next door and a string of other
buildings in Japan.
Mrs. Murayama is the daughter
of the late Ryohei Murayama, the
founder of the Asahi newspaper,
often described as '4The New York
Times of Japan"
Her husband, president of Aslahi,
is a grandson of Viscount Okabe,
descendant of the former lord of
a feudal fief near Osaka.
The Murayamas and the Asaihi
have a long tradition as patrons
of Western music. Before World
War III they brought many great
artists to Japan. During this
period, Michi, painfully shy child,
met may of them i'm the rambling,
old family mansion in Kobe, and
developed her great love for music.
TEET IN nTQnUCT1