TOKYO TO NEW YORK 東京 と NY
and Random Access Music co-production
“ONOKORO – creations/beginnings”
An evening of music and dance exploring the universal concepts of creations and beginnings
Directed by Thomas Piercy
and Random Access Music co-production
“ONOKORO – creations/beginnings”
An evening of music and dance exploring the universal concepts of creations and beginnings
Directed by Thomas Piercy
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Music by John Cage Gilbert Galindo Masatora Goya Bin Li Miho Sasaki Performances by Thomas Piercy, clarinet/hichiriki/ohichiriki Miki Orihara, dancer/choreographer modern dance Maki Yamamae, dancer/choreographer Bugaku Ghislaine van den Heuvel, dancer Gagaku ensemble: Lish Lindsey, ryuteki/hichiriki; Joseph Jordan, hichiriki; Harrison Hsu, sho; Masayo Ishigure, koto String quintet: Sabina Torosjan, violin; Lara Lewison, violin; Laura Thompson, viola; Daniel Hass, cello; Pablo Aslan, double bass Marina Iwao, piano Mask courtesy of Theatre of Yugen Costume design by Karen Young |
“ONOKORO – creations/beginnings” John Cage “Ryoanji” for 3 hichiriki and percussion (1985) Bin Li “Netori, Netori” Concerto for clarinet and gagaku ensemble (2017/2023) with bugaku dancer Maki Yamanae Miho Sasaki “黎明 - reimei - Dawn ” for ohichiriki, cello, and piano (2023) (World Premiere) Gilbert Galindo "Primordial" for clarinet, cello, and piano (2023) (World Premiere) Masatora Goya “Onokoro” Concerto for hichiriki and strings (2021) (US Premiere) with dancers Miki Orihara and Ghislaine van den Heuvel |
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September 23rd and 24th, 2023
7pm performances, doors open at 6:30pm Tickets: $30 ($15 students/seniors) |
Martha Graham Studio One
55 Bethune St, 11th floor New York, NY 10014 Information / Contact [email protected] |
"ONOKORO – creations/beginnings"
An evening of music and dance exploring the universal concepts of creations and beginnings.
“Tokyo to New York” concerts in collaboration with Random Access Music presents "ONOKORO – creations/beginnings," a fusion of music and dance that explores the universal themes of creation and beginnings. The one-hour show, under the direction of Thomas Piercy, features a captivating blend of contemporary compositions combining traditional Japanese instruments with Western classical instruments, performed by an ensemble of musicians and dancers. The show includes modern dance; traditional Japanese bugaku dance; a clarinet concerto with Gagaku ensemble; a hichiriki concerto with Western classical strings; and trios combining Western classical instruments with traditional Japanese instruments.
"ONOKORO – creations/beginnings" is not only a celebration of artistic collaboration which combines the traditional with the contemporary but is also an exploration of the universal themes of creation and beginnings. Inspired by the Japanese creation myth “Onokoro,” the show delves into the broader concept of creation and beginnings, uniting diverse musical genres and dance forms to create a truly immersive experience. This event seamlessly blends and celebrates a harmonious convergence of cultures. The performance is a testament to the diversity of musical expressions and cultures, underscoring the richness of human creativity when artistic worlds collide; a celebration of our shared human experience through the lens of dance and music.
"ONOKORO – creations/beginnings" embarks on a mesmerizing journey, blending the artistry of dance and instrumental virtuosity to summon timeless traditions through a contemporary lens. It begins with "Ryoanji," a piece that beckons forth the origins of sound itself, followed by "Netori, Netori," which evokes the genesis of organized sound and movement. As the performance unfolds, it explores the “Primordial” and “Dawn” trios that harmoniously meld traditional Eastern instruments with classical Western counterparts, traversing diverse sonic landscapes. The culmination of this artistic odyssey is "Onokoro”, a concerto for hichiriki and strings, which breathes life into traditions and intricacies uniting the Eastern and Western worlds of music and movement. This piece harnesses the boundless energy of chaos and uncertainty, echoing the essence of creation and new beginnings. Yet, it also resonates with the universal human longing for hope, infusing each creation and beginning with a profound sense of optimism.
"ONOKORO – creations/beginnings" is a testament to the rich mosaic of musical expressions and cultures, and to the power of artistry in transcending boundaries and uniting cultural legacies. Through dance and music, it invites audiences to explore the intricate interplay of tradition and innovation, chaos and hope, in a celebration of the human spirit's eternal quest for creative expression and renewal.
PROGRAM NOTES
Links to bios:
Thomas Piercy, clarinet/hichiriki/ohichiriki
Miki Orihara, dancer/choreographer modern dance
Maki Yamamae, dancer/choreographer Bugaku dance
Ghislaine van den Heuvel, dancer
Marina Iwao, piano
Gagaku ensemble:
Lish Lindsey, ryuteki/hichiriki
Joseph Jordan, hichiriki
Harrison Hsu, sho
Masayo Ishigure, koto
String quintet:
Sabina Torosjan, violin
Lara Lewison, violin
Laura Thompson, viola
Daniel Hass, cello
Pablo Aslan, double bass
John Cage
“Ryoanji” for three hichiriki and percussion (1985)
In 1983, Cage began a composition-in-progress called Ryoanji, named after the rock garden in Kyoto, Japan. This garden is a collection of 15 rocks, placed in a landscape of raked, white sand. In the summer of 1983, Cage started a series of drawings entitled Where R=Ryoanji, using (by drawing around) 15 different stones. These drawings are the basis of the graphic score used by the hichiriki. These hichiriki solos are always accompanied by a percussion part. A song is created on 2 pages, each of which contains 2 rectangular systems. In each rectangle, Cage traced parts of the perimeters of the given stones. These curves are to be played as glissandi within the given pitch ranges. The percussion part is a single complex of 2 unspecified sounds, played in unison, wood and metal. The hichiriki represents the stones of the garden, the percussion represents the raked sand.
Bin Li
“Netori, Netori” Concerto for clarinet and gagaku ensemble (2017/2023)
"Netori, Netori" is commissioned and dedicated to Thomas Piercy.
Netori (which translates as "tuning") is an introductory tuning piece for Gagaku, an ancient form of Japanese/Chinese imperial court music. Through Gagaku, the listener focuses on the now, and Netori invites the listener to experience oneness and emptiness.
"Netori, Netori" for clarinet and gagaku ensemble, draws on both Gagaku and the western classical concerto tradition. Through tuning and the interaction of soloist and ensemble, the piece explores:
1) how cultures interact
2) how the abstract devours the real
3) how to get in; how to get out
Miho Sasaki
“黎明 - reimei - Dawn ” for ohichiriki, cello, and piano (2023) (World Premiere)
"黎明-reimei-Dawn" - composed and dedicated to my dear friend, Thomas Piercy - reflects the states of beginning. Organic elements and floating particles of invisible sound are passed through each instrument, and continuously move, seeking and influencing each other. Elements attempt to form, then collapse and vanish into space.
Gilbert Galindo
"Primordial" for clarinet, cello, and piano (2023) (World Premiere)
“Primordial elements
Amorphous material
Moving, forming, igniting
Into something new”
Masatora Goya
“Onokoro” Concerto for hichiriki and strings (2021) (US Premiere)
Composed for Thomas Piercy.
The title “ONOKORO" derives from the Japanese creation myth. The onomatopoeic name is thought to stand for the way a pair of male and female deities stirred the ocean of life with a long halberd, which created the islands of Japan. I spent the majority of the year 2020 contemplating this concerto in the midst of the global pandemic and political turmoil in the US so that it must have absorbed the energy of chaos and uncertainty, as well as the dire need of hope and resurrection. It felt like a perfect parallel to the creation myth when I was trying to find a new way to integrate a Japanese traditional instrument within a traditional Western context, a new birth of hichiriki. Hichiriki is a quintessential part of Gagaku, an ancient court music imported with Buddhism through China and Korea but evolved into its own in Japan. The tiny double reed instrument with the range of about one octave is highly temperamental, but can be bent and slide between notes with the control of air and embouchure. This technique is called “enbai” and is widely heard in Gagaku. The aesthetics in Gagaku and Western classical music may be seen completely opposite, but Gagaku flourished in Japan during what was the Middle Ages in Europe so that its Western equivalent would be Gregorian chant or Medieval pagan music. Also, the recent study suggests that Gagaku used to be performed 10 times faster that the tempo we normally hear it in today. These small findings made me dream about a concerto in a raw and modal nature, showing the essences of Japanese and Western music alternately and then gradually melding the both elements as one. Hichiriki may seem primitive and imperfect from the perspective of Western classical instruments because it has never been modernized. This compelled me to showcase its power and uniquely expressive tone that still stand the test of time, rather than forcing it to play like any other Western reed instruments. It floats above the sound forest of strings, which are the body of Western symphonic tradition. To make the synthesis between the two worlds, I borrowed the “enbai” technique for strings to bend and slide between notes, used pizzicatos to emulate Japanese plucking instruments such as koto and biwa, and utilized double-stops to juxtapose notes right next to each other as does the “sho”, a bamboo mouth organ playing chords in Gagaku.
Links to bios:
Thomas Piercy, clarinet/hichiriki/ohichiriki
Miki Orihara, dancer/choreographer modern dance
Maki Yamamae, dancer/choreographer Bugaku dance
Ghislaine van den Heuvel, dancer
Marina Iwao, piano
Gagaku ensemble:
Lish Lindsey, ryuteki/hichiriki
Joseph Jordan, hichiriki
Harrison Hsu, sho
Masayo Ishigure, koto
String quintet:
Sabina Torosjan, violin
Lara Lewison, violin
Laura Thompson, viola
Daniel Hass, cello
Pablo Aslan, double bass
John Cage
“Ryoanji” for three hichiriki and percussion (1985)
In 1983, Cage began a composition-in-progress called Ryoanji, named after the rock garden in Kyoto, Japan. This garden is a collection of 15 rocks, placed in a landscape of raked, white sand. In the summer of 1983, Cage started a series of drawings entitled Where R=Ryoanji, using (by drawing around) 15 different stones. These drawings are the basis of the graphic score used by the hichiriki. These hichiriki solos are always accompanied by a percussion part. A song is created on 2 pages, each of which contains 2 rectangular systems. In each rectangle, Cage traced parts of the perimeters of the given stones. These curves are to be played as glissandi within the given pitch ranges. The percussion part is a single complex of 2 unspecified sounds, played in unison, wood and metal. The hichiriki represents the stones of the garden, the percussion represents the raked sand.
Bin Li
“Netori, Netori” Concerto for clarinet and gagaku ensemble (2017/2023)
"Netori, Netori" is commissioned and dedicated to Thomas Piercy.
Netori (which translates as "tuning") is an introductory tuning piece for Gagaku, an ancient form of Japanese/Chinese imperial court music. Through Gagaku, the listener focuses on the now, and Netori invites the listener to experience oneness and emptiness.
"Netori, Netori" for clarinet and gagaku ensemble, draws on both Gagaku and the western classical concerto tradition. Through tuning and the interaction of soloist and ensemble, the piece explores:
1) how cultures interact
2) how the abstract devours the real
3) how to get in; how to get out
Miho Sasaki
“黎明 - reimei - Dawn ” for ohichiriki, cello, and piano (2023) (World Premiere)
"黎明-reimei-Dawn" - composed and dedicated to my dear friend, Thomas Piercy - reflects the states of beginning. Organic elements and floating particles of invisible sound are passed through each instrument, and continuously move, seeking and influencing each other. Elements attempt to form, then collapse and vanish into space.
Gilbert Galindo
"Primordial" for clarinet, cello, and piano (2023) (World Premiere)
“Primordial elements
Amorphous material
Moving, forming, igniting
Into something new”
Masatora Goya
“Onokoro” Concerto for hichiriki and strings (2021) (US Premiere)
Composed for Thomas Piercy.
The title “ONOKORO" derives from the Japanese creation myth. The onomatopoeic name is thought to stand for the way a pair of male and female deities stirred the ocean of life with a long halberd, which created the islands of Japan. I spent the majority of the year 2020 contemplating this concerto in the midst of the global pandemic and political turmoil in the US so that it must have absorbed the energy of chaos and uncertainty, as well as the dire need of hope and resurrection. It felt like a perfect parallel to the creation myth when I was trying to find a new way to integrate a Japanese traditional instrument within a traditional Western context, a new birth of hichiriki. Hichiriki is a quintessential part of Gagaku, an ancient court music imported with Buddhism through China and Korea but evolved into its own in Japan. The tiny double reed instrument with the range of about one octave is highly temperamental, but can be bent and slide between notes with the control of air and embouchure. This technique is called “enbai” and is widely heard in Gagaku. The aesthetics in Gagaku and Western classical music may be seen completely opposite, but Gagaku flourished in Japan during what was the Middle Ages in Europe so that its Western equivalent would be Gregorian chant or Medieval pagan music. Also, the recent study suggests that Gagaku used to be performed 10 times faster that the tempo we normally hear it in today. These small findings made me dream about a concerto in a raw and modal nature, showing the essences of Japanese and Western music alternately and then gradually melding the both elements as one. Hichiriki may seem primitive and imperfect from the perspective of Western classical instruments because it has never been modernized. This compelled me to showcase its power and uniquely expressive tone that still stand the test of time, rather than forcing it to play like any other Western reed instruments. It floats above the sound forest of strings, which are the body of Western symphonic tradition. To make the synthesis between the two worlds, I borrowed the “enbai” technique for strings to bend and slide between notes, used pizzicatos to emulate Japanese plucking instruments such as koto and biwa, and utilized double-stops to juxtapose notes right next to each other as does the “sho”, a bamboo mouth organ playing chords in Gagaku.
"ONOKORO – creations/beginnings" is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. "ONOKORO – creations/beginnings" is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
