Orchester

Cities and Memory 12' (2020)

Flute, Clarinet in Bb, 2Violin, Viola, Violoncello, Contrabass, Percussion and Piano

Commission of Ensemble Nomad - 荒木田隆子基金委嘱
Premiere: 19.Oct. 2020 in Opera City, Recital Hall


About the Work:

The piece consists of sound and memories for invisible home. It refers to the concept of the art movement Mono-ha, which originated in Japan in the late 1960s. "Mono" means "object" or "thing," and the mono-ha artists tend to present mostly found or natural materials, or simple everyday objects. I am very interested in this concept, and I will try not to apply it to visible objects, but to "private unknown memories". Our private memory is usually invisible, sometimes inexplicable, but it certainly exists in all of
us. 

Memory’s images, once they are fixed in words, are erased. Perhaps I am afraid of losing Venice all at once, if I speak of it. Or, perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already lost it, little by little.

Italo Calvino, Le città invisibil

Morning Haze Junction (2018)
朝もやジャンクション（2018）


Commission of Suntory Foundation for Arts for Suntory Hall Summer Festival 2018, the 28th Competition of Akutagawa Award for Music Composition.

3.2.3.2-4.3.3.1-Tim-3 Per.-Acc.-Pf.-Str. (12.12.10.8.6)

Duration:17'30"

About the work:

I have an image of music that radiates out in various layers, not only the moment the sound is created, but also the historical sounds and contexts that the performer may have experienced. I am fascinated by the memory of sounds that I have experienced, so I focused on that in composing this piece.  In "Morning Moya Junction," the theme is the very personal, everyday moments of life. It is my own acoustic diary, a kind of record of my living memory.　These collected moments are different from the so-called "beautiful things". Sometimes they are artificial, sometimes they are ordinary landscapes that people are not aware of. In the process of creation, I sometimes recall memories of my childhood, memories as fetus in my mother's womb, or memories of myself from the past that I had forgotten, so it was somehow unusual that I ended up taking an unexpected journey of memory, like going back and forth between the past and the future.　Among the several soundscapes, the junction, which is also part of the title, is related to the soundscape of the Egyptian city I visited in 2016 and plays a core role in the work.  Cars rushing by on streets with blaring horns and no traffic lights, and people slipping in between. The chaos of the city and the recitation of the Quran that is regularly played over the public airwaves. It was a perfect balance of tremendous power and delicacy, and my experience there has been etched in my mind as an unforgettable memory ever since.


gefaltet...(2014)
折られた・・・

 Premiere: 6.5.2015, Achtbrücken, Musikhochschule Köln
2.2.2.2-2.2.2.1-3 Per.-Harp-Str. (8.8.6.6.4)
Duration:11'00"
score


About the Work:
This work is written in the last year of my six-year stay in Austria. I would like to write a commentary on the piece, mentioning the reason why I did not write an orchestral piece even though I had several opportunities to do so, and the challenges I faced in doing so. The orchestra is an indispensable "culture" in today's music, and the fact that everyone in the space, including the audience, can share a moment of unity through sound is precious and wonderful in itself. However, I still had a few questions as to why I did not write for this huge form. One of them is how to understand the individual instruments. For example, in chamber music, I compose while imagining in detail the sounds and movements of the individual performers, whereas in an orchestra, how should I imagine them? And about the use of "tone", "noise", and "new techniques" that I used in chamber music. In this piece, I tried to achieve the same effect by combining simple techniques without reducing the number of sound palettes that I usually use. Another thing I tried to do in this piece was to capture the sound in a flatness, a concept that is the opposite of the three-dimensionality that most orchestral works have, which is spread out in space. Like origami, I constructed the acoustics in such a way that the flat lines would take on a three-dimensional quality as they were folded. This work begins with a bouncy sound, and then expands as a single line is folded over and over. The sound at the end of the expansion is like a piece of paper that is folded into many layers or illuminated by a flashing strobe light, occasionally showing its face and slowly changing.

blinzelnd...（2012）
瞬きして

Premiere: 4.10.2012, Musikprotokoll Graz, Cantus Ensemblem, cond. Ivan Josip Skender

1.1.1.1-1.1.1-2 Per.-Acc.-Pf-Str. (1.1.1.1.1)

Duration:11'00"