The centuries-old three-stringed lute, a mainstay of traditional Japanese art music, remained popular up at least to the turn of the millennium, but most of the remaining players today are well over 60. With the pandemic paralyzing an already shrinking market, the country’s largest shamisen maker was about to close when it was rescued (for now) by an online fundraising campaign. There’s some hope that a newer style called tsugaru shamisen, livelier and less austere than the genteel music of Kyoto geishas, can keep interest in the instrument alive. – The Observer (UK)