Page 4 THE VILLADOM TIMES II • November 21, 2012 Ridgewood Marimba virtuoso Kayo Toda gets fond farewell by John Koster A Ridgewood audience passed up a summery November day to enjoy an indoor marimba concert and offer a warm farewell of sustained applause and sincere compliments to Kayo Toda, a village resident who will be returning to Japan next year. Toda, a marimba virtuoso who moved to Ridgewood in 2010, was accompanied by pianist Naoko Sawada, who came to Ridgewood in 2007. The program included a medley of songs by Stephen Foster, Japanese children’s songs arranged by Jiro Sensyu, ragtime hits from the turn of the previous century, and several pieces written for the marimba. Toda is the director of the West Japan Marimbist Association and is a graduate of Osaka Music College. She began performing as a soloist when she was a teen and has performed as a guest soloist with the Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra and Osaka Symphony Orchestra, and as a soloist in the Japan-China Cultural Exchange. The audience -- about half Japanese and the others of European ancestry -Kayo Toda and Naoko Sawada at Toda’s Ridgewood marimba farewell concert. watched with fascination as she switched mallets for sharper or more sustained tones, and used two mallets with “Dance Riteuelle de Feu” by Manuel de Falla. After sustained applause at the end of the hour-long concert, Toda each hand, striking with four at one time, on some pieces. announced an appropriate encore for Nov. 11: “The Stars “Oh wow!” one resident said quietly. Toda deftly gripped two mallets in each hand without and Stripes Forever” by John Phillip Sousa. Sawada, who graduated from the University of South missing a beat, and altered the size of the mallet heads based on the pieces she was performing. She received two Florida with a master’s degree in music, filled in for the (continued on page 8) bouquets from the audience as she finished the last number,