Hello and welcome to the Art Life Faith podcast. I'm your host, Roger Lowther.



Every year, we have interns come work alongside us in what God is doing here in Japan through the arts. This summer, one of our interns was a phenomenal dancer named Anna Gardner Herren, with a huge heart for missions around the world. This was her third summer with us here in Japan, and she also made trips to Taiwan and Korea.



Last August, I interviewed her in this podcast—"#61 Summer Internships” if you’d like to have a listen—so I thought it would only be fair to give her a chance to interview me this year. She has her own wonderful podcast called The Purpose of Beauty, where she explores the role of beauty in our lives talking with various artists from around the world. In this episode that I’m about to share with you, we discuss some things that I’ve never talked about before on this podcast, especially about the music of Bach and its impact in Japan, so I think you’ll enjoy it.



You can find other episodes of her podcast by searching for The Purpose of Beauty or by going to our show notes. Here is our conversation:







Anna Gardner



Hello and welcome to the “Purpose of Beauty” podcast. I'm here with Roger W. Lowther, founder and director of Community Arts Tokyo and worship director at Grace City Church Tokyo. He also just happens to be my boss as the Mission to the World team leader in Japan. So let's welcome Roger.



Roger



Thank you. Great to be here. Looking forward to talking with you about this.



Anna Gardner



I'm so excited to talk to you because you have so many books written about beauty, so I really wanted to hear some things that you had to say.



Roger



Sure. Well, where do we start?



Anna Gardner



Where do we start? Well, one of the things that I really enjoyed hearing you talk about is Bach, and especially Bach in Japan. So for those of you just tuning in, he is a really amazing organ player, has played all over Japan and America and probably other places as well. And he was telling me more about how Bach is so influential and important in Japan, possibly more so than America.



Roger



Yeah, I would say so.



Anna Gardner



But how did you first encounter Bach?



Roger



Oh, interesting question. I've actually never been asked that before.



Anna Gardner



Really? Well, I would love to know.



Roger



I was about to switch teachers between elementary school and junior high, and the teacher wanted to test me, audition me to see if he would take me on as a student. And so he gave me a lesson and said, “I want you to learn this piece.” It was from the Liturgical Year, the little pieces that Bach wrote, each one's like a page long, so it's not too hard. And I passed the audition. He said, “Wow, I've never had someone learn this so quickly.” I had nothing to compare it to so I didn't know. I practiced really hard.



Anna Gardner



So Bach is one of your origin stories of playing the organ?



Roger



Yeah, I mean, it was a very stressful situation, so I didn't actually enjoy playing the piece very much. But that was my first interaction. Yeah, and then it's grown from there.



Anna Gardner



Wow. Did you ever think you would be playing it here in Japan?