About
Megumi Saruhashi is a violinist and composer, who grew up around rice paddy fields in seaport city, Funabashi in Chiba Prefecture, Japan.
Having performed around the globe from Carnegie Hall to refugee camps in the Middle East, Megumi knows no boundary when it comes to performing music.
Megumi has embraced her credo “The earth is my home, the sky is my blanket. Wherever I go, I am home”, with three bases she calls home, namely, Japan, New York and Egypt.
Through steeping in these three cultures, she found her voice in musical compositions that express her admiration for these distinctively unique cultures, and discovered the magic and healing in uncovering the unity that hides in diversity. Her compositions reconcile differences across the cultural psyches, and enrich each one through the gifts of the other.
Years in New York city has gifted her a wide range of musical influences; Jazz, contemporary Gospel, Argentinian Tango, Western classical, Japanese folk, free jazz and most importantly, Arabic music from the Golden Age.
She has received extensive training with the masters in the Middle East, especially from a living legend, violinist and composer, Abdo Daghar in Cairo, who taught her the importance of innocent play.
Her leader group Megumi & Friends has received awards from Brooklyn Arts Council in 2018 and 2019 and toured throughout Japan and Egypt.
Megumi has also been active as a soloist with ensembles and orchestras in Cairo, especially with El Manara ensemble. She has appeared at the Cairo Opera House as a guest soloist.
One of her compositions "Refugees" was composed for Syrian refugees in Aramoun, Lebanon where she partnered with an NGO, URDA, and held a singing workshop called " Song without words."
Her desire and exploration is around sparking self-expression in people with traumatic experiences through the joy and deep range and fluidity of feeling that music can bring. She wishes to bring the experience of simultaneous lightness and depth, playfulness and deep healing.
Megumi continually crosses borders -- literally and musically -- in her dedication to finding a unifying healing force through embracing diversity.
Story
As a young girl in Japan, I grew up under very authoritarian systems, with rigid standards of intelligence, propriety, beauty, and acceptability. It was very oppressive, and as a result, my voice was stifled early on.
I sought excellence in my craft of Chinese Calligraphy, and Tea Ceremony. These practices rooted me in my culture and awakened a respect for ritual and appreciation of discipline in the detail that brings out a beauty that can only come from perfecting each movement.
But this way of pursuing excellence in music wasn't in resonance with what had been stifled in me and was now seeking to express. The creativity could not be fostered through this overly disciplined perfecting that is so part of the Japanese culture.
I was sensing the shallowness of life in what was expected of me in society, and the obsession of perfecting the details felt devoid of the creative soul.
It felt like everyone was colluding with the false veneer of perfection that bordered on being abusive in the culture (at times, literal abuses), and no one was supported to be different, and none dared to call out the brutal truth at the risk of being ostracized.
Much like cut flowers with no roots, whose moments in the sun are most surely taken away shortly after.
We were donkeys chasing carrots on a stick and rewarded only for how well we fell in line. Life was only ever delayed gratification, doing for others, for impressions, for strict cultural standards. Individual voices were stifled in favor of a collective mask. While this is not restricted to the Japanese culture, it is nonetheless devastating to the Child of creativity within.
What I craved for was to find and express true beauty that uplifts the creator and beholder alike -- where the means is no different from the outcome...where the truth and joy of beauty is present through the whole creative cycle. I sought for beauty that could give me a glimpse into eternity, a sense of limitless potential in the process of seeking.
And so I intuitively stayed away from formal musical training. In retrospect, I see that I was subconsciously guided to keep my music innocent and pure, preventing the rigidity of rules that come with very formal musical training.
The moment I was exposed to Arabic music, I became mesmerized. The musical intricacy, the uniqueness of their ways of singing phrases, of expressing their emotions of longing and desires that had no voice otherwise in their oppressed society.
What I heard was so simple and expressive and at the same time very complex and intricate; it was both playful and light yet deeply emotionally complex. And the musical style broke every rule or box that I had known, so that in all ways, it touched my heart and soul directly.
I was completely taken in and intrigued to follow its mystery, and this took me on a journey of deep feeling that liberated me inwardly in a way I could not be outwardly. The culture and people were so different. I felt the usual fear of their differences, but the music was too compelling and drew me to explore the culture--the soul of the people who could create such distinct and powerful music.
When I play Arabic music, I tune into the qualities and essence of the music, the deep-seated desire to be free from oppression, the power of feeling it evokes, the celebration of innocent play, and the depth of the non-cognitive that it gives space to...but in a unique way that moves people to experience the common human longing of depth of self-presence and joy of being.
My Japanese roots and the years studying and playing in New York city has added depth to my self-disciplined musical life, but only in adding the third component, Arabic music and my connection to Egypt, my musical world became multi dimensional. By connecting these three cultures, I found my north star in music. The frozen parts in me started to dance again.
When I compose my own music, I write music that creates the space for the listener to have their own experience to a next level of self-connection, acceptance, and movement of inner frozen parts. I feel the music deeply, and write and play from that place of resonance in the heart, as an invitation to the listener to experience themselves through it. I write with compassion and appreciation of the diversity of cultures and their contributions.
With my music, I seek to bridge cultures, to address the basic human longing for self-connection, for recognition and awakening of deep parts never before felt, to share this transformative depth with others.
It is in embracing diversity that I find the inspiration for innovation.
I write music for the human condition, and strive for acceptance of diversity and inclusion in the way I express through music. I have a vision of my music touching the soul of many cultures, uniting people where there was distance: healing and peace through fostering common bonds in music.
