- You invest an enormous amount of time in your singing. What
is singing for you?
ANNA
: It's
my life and soul.
- We were surprised by your album "Omoi" which continued
to play on the theme of tango. For the first time in the history
of tango you performed, in Japanese, songs which are popular worldwide
such as lullabies and songs for children. How did you come up
with this new idea?
ANNA
: I
wanted to introduce Japanese people to tango. To use rhythms from
the old songs that we listened to and danced to as children, using
tango to give new life to these songs... This idea has worked
well abroad. I was very happy that the audience could feel the
emotion beyond the lyrics in this album.
- In Paris while wearing a kimono, you sang songs from Piazzolla
in Spanish accompanied by Parisians musicians; in New York, while
singing Vietnamese songs, accompanied by American musicians, you
wore an 'ao dai' (traditional Vietnamese costume) embroidered
with the motif of a blossoming cherry tree. Behind this clear
vision, your performance seems to bring together cultures from
all over the world.
ANNA
: I
can't thank you enough. I am pleased that you have remarked on
this. My wish is to create through song an international cultural
exchange. For my concerts abroad I so wanted to bring the kimono,
traditional in Japanese culture. I wanted for the audiences to
discover this part of Japanese culture with their own eyes. I
did the same thing with the Vietnamese songs from the new album,
I decided to bring an 'ao dai' for all the concerts.
I still remember the Argentinian ambassador saying in New York
"I think that what you are doing serves as a link between
the United States, Argentina and Japan..." and I push myself
to continue moving in this direction, step by step.
- On the new album, for the first time there are songs that you
produced yourself. How did the recording sessions go?
ANNA
: Well...
I wrote, recorded and produced two songs in Berlin. During the
recording, while singing 'Anatato tomoni (with you) -ano uta-'
I experienced something new. I cried during this song and this
created empathy around me. On the other side of the recording
cabin, the engineers leaned their heads towards me, questioning
what was going on. They said, "We don't understand Japanese
(as the text of the song is Japanese) but we can feel the emotion
in the lyrics". We only did one take. The engineers and personnel
had tears in their eyes. On leaving the recording studio they
applauded warmly and said "it's wonderful", the second
song 'Deai (meeting) -ichigo ichie- ' is a very dramatic song.
I am very happy to have been able to do such a moving recording
with such a great team..