World-renowned violinist ready to rock

Wai Mitzutani, the Juilliard-schooled violinist who has performed everywhere from the New York Philharmonic to the Korean Symphony Orchestra, is ready to let his hair down.

He and a collection of other musicians will perform some of the Chinese-born Mizutani’s favorite rock ‘n’ roll classics at “Blurred Lines,” Friday, May 5 at 7 p.m. at the Bigfork Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets to the show are $16 and are available at the Pocketstone Cafe in Bigfork, the Kalispell Grand Hotel and online at www.bigforkcenter.org.

For Mizutani, the show is an achievement he’s been planning for “five or six years” but is a lifetime in the making.

“We had a dream to listen to this kind of music,” he said of his childhood in the Communist republic. “I knew there was this cool music with cool beats and cool drums but that was being restricted.

“Hosting this concert, to me, is almost paying my respect back to this country.”

Mizutani moved to New York in 1986 and relocated to the Flathead Valley years later. He works currently as an adjunct professor at Flathead Valley Community College and has performed primarily as a classical musician throughout the region.

This show, however, ignites a different kind of passion.

“Classic music is flamboyant and fake, not real,” Mizutani said with a laugh. “This, you have to put yourself in real. I love it. It’s telling people how bad you are. It feels cool, rather than telling people how perfect you are.”

Mizutani will be joined on stage by a drummer, keyboard player, bass player and guitarist, and the classically-trained performer has had to start from the ground up in rock ‘n’ roll.

“Playing with these guys it’s almost like a rookie mechanic in an oily, stinky garage,” Mizutani said. “To learn all those nuts and bolts of where all these beats are going, it’s really cool.”

The arrangements were crafted by Mizutani, who listed Lenny Kravitz as the artist who first introduced him to rock ‘n’ roll in America. He’s since grown to love plenty of other rockers, and songs from The Eagles, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, AC/DC and more will be featured Friday.

Mizutani said he expects to continue playing rock ‘n’ roll shows, and hopes to highlight individual bands in future performances, reinventing himself and his band mates as some of his rock ‘n’ roll favorites.

For more information on the show, visit www.bigforkcenter.org.