Grateful Crane Ensemble

In 2023, we toured our "sentimental journey, a nisei life in song," show to japanese american communities in berkeley (march 18), san francisco (june 24) gardena (july 9), watsonville (august 19) and san jose (august 20). A tribute to the nisei generation, the show featured nostalgic songs from the wwii camp era, and favorite post-war japanese and american songs. On may 20, 2023, we premiered "songs for a sansei," a show chock-full of favorite "sansei songs" from the 50s, 60s and 70s. Held at the san fernando valley japanese american community center, the show brought back a lot of memories, and several sansei got up and danced. On june 25, 2023, Grateful Crane performed "arigatou benkyodo," a special tribute show in honor of san francisco japantown's famous japanese confectionery which closed in 2022. In front of the benkyodo family, former employees and our japanese american community, we sang songs and thanked the shop which served san francisco for 115 years. In october 2023, Grateful Crane embarked on our fourth goodwill tour to tohoku, japan where we sang songs of hope and inspiration for tsunami survivors in fukushima, miyagi and iwate prefectures. For the first time, our tour received nationwide coverage on nhk national news, and a story about our tour was broadcast worldwide on nhk world.