Harry Aoki's First Friday Forum
is the first Friday of every month at the Nikkei Heritage
Centre. Harry performed at Gung Haggis Fat Choy 2005 dinner on
double bass accompanying Veera devi Khare, with Janine Oye on
clarinet. Harry has also both attended and performed at past GHFC
dinners, performing with singer Margaret Gallagher (Yes… the same
Margaret Gallager heard regularly on CBC Radio's Early Edition in
Vancouver).
Harry discussed the Chinese head tax as one of his forum issues
tonight, and had different musical friends performing, including: Max
Ngai on violin; Janine Oye on clarinet, other musicians on japanese
banjo, trumpet, piano… It is a wonderful evening of cameraderie and
musicianship.
Harry also invited me up to the front to perform on my accordion –
Hungarian Dance No. 5, accompanied by Harry himself on Double
Bass. At the 2003 Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinner, we performed this
for the audience with a then-12 year old Alex Sachs on violin, Pat
Covernton on keyboards, Karen Larson on tambourine, and Nealamjit
Dhillon on tabla drums. Very cool! Thanks Harry. See
you in March when you have Sean Gunn performing “Head Tax Blues” as
your special guest.