June 15 marks the birthday of Ikuo Hirayama (1930–2009). In this year of the museum’s 20th anniversary, Ren Hirayama, Chairman of the museum, eldest son of Ikuo Hirayama, paleontologist, and professor at Waseda University, and Takashi Inoue, supervising producer of NHK’s “New Silk Road” series, will speak about memories of Ikuo Hirayama. In the second half, violinist Liu Wei, originally from Lanzhou, Gansu Province, China, and now living in Hokuto City, will perform music inspired by the Silk Road.
Date: Saturday, June 15
1. 1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Commemorative Talk: “Remembering Ikuo Hirayama”
2. 3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Liu Wei Violin Concert
*Both events will be held in Exhibition Room 6 on the 2nd floor. Admission is free; however, a museum admission ticket is required.
*All seats are unreserved. Capacity: first 100 participants.
【Performer Profiles】
Ren Hirayama
Born in Tokyo in 1956. Graduated from the Faculty of Economics, Keio University, and withdrew from the latter half of the doctoral program at Kyoto University Graduate School. He is a professor at the School of International Liberal Studies, Waseda University, Doctor of Science, and Chairman of the Hirayama Ikuo Silk Road Museum. His specialty is fossil reptiles, with a particular interest in the phylogenetic evolution and paleobiogeography of turtles from the age of dinosaurs. In recent years, he has been conducting excavation research in Japan at fossil sites in Kuji City, Iwate Prefecture, where Cretaceous-period turtle and dinosaur fossils dating back approximately 90 million years have been found. Overseas, his research focuses mainly on giant tortoises the size of passenger cars, dating back approximately 5 million years, discovered in Myanmar. His major publications include The Path of Turtles (NHK Publishing), The Latest Edition! Everything About Dinosaurs (Takarajimasha), and numerous papers including “Oldest Known Sea Turtle” in Nature.
Takashi Inoue
Born in 1952 in Kagawa Prefecture. Graduated from the School of Law, Waseda University. He has served as supervising producer of NHK’s “New Silk Road,” representative of Chikyu Soken, and auditor of the Hirayama Ikuo Silk Road Museum. As a producer of NHK programs such as “Invitation to History,” he mainly worked on historical programs. He later engaged in the production of NHK Specials and large-scale series programs related to civilization, history, and art as a producer in departments including the Special Programs Department of the General Broadcasting Administration. His major works include “The Great Yellow River,” “The Great Mongol Empire,” “China’s 1.2 Billion People and Reform and Opening-Up,” “Portraits of Families,” “The Four Great Civilizations,” and “New Silk Road.” He has also served as visiting professor at the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature and specially appointed professor at Tokyo University of the Arts.
Liu Wei
Violinist / Doctor of Music
Born in Lanzhou on the Chinese Silk Road. During the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, she practiced secretly as a child using sheet music handwritten by her father. The story of how father and daughter overcame great hardship and followed their path in music has deeply moved many people.
When Ikuo Hirayama was president of Tokyo University of the Arts, she was awarded the rare degree of Doctor of Music in the field of performance in Japan. She has performed throughout Japan, at Carnegie Hall in the United States, in Europe and North America, as well as in three cities in the Jiangnan region near Shanghai at the invitation of China’s Ministry of Culture, in Guizhou Province, on Silk Road tours in Lanzhou and Xinjiang, and at the Guangzhou Arts Festival.
She is currently a full-time professor at The Kyoto College of Graduate Studies for Informatics. In 2018, she moved to Hokuto City. She has published the recipe book Ten Years Without Dialysis — My Healthy Diet Despite It All (Kodansha), written to help overcome her chronic kidney failure, as well as the memoir Why I Refused Dialysis (Kizuna Publishing). In 2019, she underwent a living-donor kidney transplant from her husband. She shares performance videos on YouTube in collaboration with the magnificent nature of Yatsugatake.
Liu Wei website: [www.liuwei-musics.com](http://www.liuwei-musics.com)
