Catching up with the Koto at the 2013 Calgary Omatsuri

The koto is a traditional Japanese instrument. This stringed instrument actually came originally from China. At the 2013 Calgary Japanese Festival,  Mizue Asai-Kaufmann and Kaori Akiyama performed several numbers after the short drizzle:

I had an opportunity to chat with them afterwards about learning to play the koto. How interesting that they both learned the koto at the same age!