NISHIKAWA TERUKA: PIANO RECITAL

READING AND WRITING
JAPANESE WOMEN'S TEXTS

Keynote Speakers:

Laurel Rasplica Rodd, University of Colorado
Boulder, Colorado

Sharalyn Orbaugh, University of British Columbia
Vancouver, British Columbia



UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA
EDMONTON, ALBERTA
CANADA

AUGUST 16-20, 2001

Contemporary Piano Works
by Japanese Women Composers

Friday, August 17th, 2001; 8:00 P.M.
Convocation Hall, University of Alberta
Nishikawa Teruka, piano

Programme

Hara Kazuko (b.1935): Sonatine (1958)
Miyake Haruna (b.1942): Sonata No.3 (1964)
Karen Tanaka (b. 1961): Crystalline I (1988)

Intermission

Fujie Keiko (b.1963): Suites on the Water's Edge (2000)

Hara Kazuko. In addition to her compositional study in Paris, the experience of vocal studies with I.A. Corradetti at the Venice Conservatory of Music greatly expanded the creative approaches of Hara Kazuko (b.1935). With the sensational success of her second opera, Iwaiuta ga nagareru yoruni (On the Merry Night), she established her fame as a leading contemporary opera composer in Japan. Her main focus is composing operas for major organizations, like the National Theatre, and for provincial cities. She also writes her own libretti, whose subjects often relate to social issues, such as brain death. Noteworthy are her depictions of independent figures of women in her operas, which contrast with the gentle, beautiful and devoted female characters usually found in operas. Sonatine (1958) was composed in her youth and premiered by Yasukawa Kazuko in the same year. It reveals her musical language of that time was related closely to neo-classicism with her uses of form, harmony, and counterpoint. With the exception of small pieces for children, there are only two works written for solo piano.

Miyake Haruna. In the 1960s, a graduate of Juilliard School of Music in piano and composition, Miyake Haruna (b.1942) received several awards, including the E. Benjamin Award in 1964, as well as commissions, like one from Lincoln Centre in New York. Her musical idioms from this period reveal her use of progressive compositional devices inspired by leading avant-garde composers of that time. Sonata No.3 (1964) is her representative work from this period. After returning to Tokyo in the beginning of the 1970s, she established her musical activities as a composer-pianist. The characteristic features of her music since then includes improvisations, and her uses of musical elements from other genres of music like enka, rock or jazz.

Karen Tanaka. During her compositional study at Toho School of Music with Miyoshi Akira, an acclaimed composer in Japan, Karen Tanaka has already began receiving several awards in Japan as well as in Europe. She is based in Paris, where she took further study and worked as an intern at IRCAM. With increasing numbers of important commissions from international organizations, performances and broadcasts around the world, she is recognized as one of the leading contemporary Japanese composers. Most recently, Guardian Angel, an orchestral work, commissioned by Music From Japan, an annual concert series held in New York on its 25th anniversary, received sensational success. Crystalline (1988), as her first piano solo work, examples her harmonic language by creating consonance without being tonal. Her own description on her such approach is: "transformation of timbre in space, analogue to a gradual choice of light refraction in crystals and prisms." (New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Karen Tanaka, vol.25, 2000. P.60-61.)

Fujie Keiko. When Fujie Keiko received the Otaka Award, the oldest annual award for an orchestral work in Japan, in 1994, she received public attention as the first women recipient in its history. Since then she is recognized as a prominent contemporary composer and writes music for orchestras and concert halls, like the National Theatre in Japan. Her musical language includes the uses of relaxed musical development of fragmented melodies and transparent reverberation. Suites on the Water's Edge was originally written in 1997, and later completed by adding last four pieces in 2000. The melody of last piece, A Lullaby of Wave, was sketched from when her first child was singing and cradling a little baby brother (the composer's fourth child). Her recent interests lie on combining traditional Japanese instruments and western music.

| University of Alberta | Faculty of Arts |
| Economic Development Edmonton | Edmonton Tourism |

| Top of Page |

BEST VIEWED WITH

| Webmaster |