By SATOSHI YAMAZAKI/ Staff Writer
December 11, 2020 at 14:20 JST
From front left: Jazz pianist Junko Onishi, novelist Haruki Murakami, clarinetist Eiji Kitamura and pop singer Miu Sakamoto after a Murakami Jam live music event in June 2019 (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Renowned Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami invites listeners to usher in 2021 together as he will host his first New Year's Eve radio special live from a studio in his hometown Kyoto.
“Let’s hear the tolling of the New Year’s Eve bells in the ancient capital and ring in the new year together,” Murakami said in a statement on the website of the show, titled “Toshikoshi Special--Ushizaka 21--” (Year-crossing Special).
“It’s a live broadcast, so there’s no telling what I will say ... Tune in to see what will happen.”
The show will be aired over Tokyo FM’s nationwide network of 38 broadcasting stations from 11 p.m. on Dec. 31 to 1 a.m. on Jan. 1.
The award-winning author has hosted his Murakami Radio program almost every two months since August 2018. He also selects songs for the program, which has never aired live.
Murakami's New Year's Eve radio special will have two of his close friends as guests.
They are Juichi Yamagiwa, an authority on gorilla studies and former Kyoto University president, and Shinya Yamanaka, Nobel Prize-winning stem cell biologist and director of Kyoto University's Center for iPS Cell Research and Application.
Murakami will appear in public on Feb. 14, Valentine's Day, as host of the second Murakami Jam live music event, which he produces. It will be held in Tokyo and streamed online as well.
Jazz pianist Junko Onishi will serve as music director for the event as she did for the previous one in June 2019.
Murakami’s new collection of short stories due out in July
June 4, 2020
Author Murakami DJs 'Stay Home' radio show to lift spirits
May 23, 2020
Haruki Murakami to DJ ‘Stay Home’ radio special amid shutdown
May 12, 2020
Murakami used donations to help repair Soseki’s former home
February 23, 2020
Yu Miri’s ‘Tokyo Ueno Station’ wins major U.S. book award
November 19, 2020
Here is a collection of first-hand accounts by “hibakusha” atomic bomb survivors.
A peek through the music industry’s curtain at the producers who harnessed social media to help their idols go global.
Cooking experts, chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life.
A series based on diplomatic documents declassified by Japan’s Foreign Ministry
A series about Japanese-Americans and their memories of World War II
