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Zen and the music of Somei Satoh

Zen and the music of Somei Satoh

Somei Satoh has, at age 61, achieved an impressive international reputation in the style of "gendai hogaku," which is translated as "contemporary traditional music." Largely self-taught, he has based his music not on the usual technical methods of composition, but on the spiritual exercises of Zen Buddhism and Shintoism, both with strong elements of nature.

"The gods and goddesses are in all of nature, and they are the purest existence," he says. "My music is part of nature, too."

Satoh began in multimedia design, where he once placed eight speakers on mountain tops surrounding a large valley and, as manufactured fog rose from below, the music combined with laser beams and cloud-like formations. Now he concentrates only on music, "because music is the goddess of all art."

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He was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic to compose "Kisetsu" for the orchestra's "Messages for the Millenium" in 1999. The Japanese artist says that conductor Kurt Masur had to stop the performance at three minutes and start the performance again "because the sound of my music was very soft and the audience was not quiet, such as coughing and clearing of throats." The title of the subsequent New York Times review was "On Rudeness in the Abstract and the Audience."

Of his stay in a 15th-century castle in Umbertide in northwestern Italy, Satoh notes that "the clean air, the bright sun and the blue sky are fairly different from Japan." He says that his Attack Theatre commission "was affected deeply from the beauty of the nature in Umbertide."

MIYUKI ITO: TIME AND TIMBRE

Miyuki Ito, 39, is a native of Nagoya, Japan. After she earned a degree from Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music in Japan, she went on to receive her master's from Manhattan School of Music and a doctorate at Columbia University, studying with Naoyuki Terai, Pierre Charvet, Philippe Leroux and Tristan Murail. Influenced by Murail's spectral music, she followed that with a year of research in Paris.

"My pieces have been strongly shaped by Japanese aesthetics, especially the traditional Japanese concept of time and timbre," Ito also notes. Her works have been performed in festivals around the world, and she received commissions from Centre Acanthes (France) and SMC2007 (Greece), among others, and her marimba solo work, "Fading Memories," was recorded by Mayumi Sekizawa. Ito currently teaches at the Aichi Prefectural University and Nagoya University of Arts.

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Her music for Attack Theatre's "The Furious Wind" was inspired by an original painting from the 17th century, a work that has provided inspiration for many Japanese artists through the years.

First Published: January 31, 2008, 10:00 a.m.

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