SPRING LIGHT

PROGRAM NOTES

YASHA MAI (Dance of Yasha) by Kaoru Wada (b.1961)

This short, energetic piece which was composed in 1989 for the classic sankyoku ensemble, depicts the Buddhist deity known as Yasha in a wild dance. Yasha are a race of powerful, high ranking nature spirits which appear in Buddhist cosmology. They are a type of kijin, or demon gods; worshiped as benevolent gods and feared as wrathful demons. Kijin are fearsome warriors and serve as guardians of the treasures of the earth. They have varied forms, but generally are humanoid in appearance, with brightly colored skin, spiked hair, sharp teeth, and fierce eyes. They are usually depicted carrying weapons and wearing ornate armor.

YACHIYO JISHI by Fujinaga Kengyō (fl. 1740)

Yachiyo Jishi (Lion of 8,000 years) is a wish of long life for the ruling house. The music, which is often presented as part of Kabuki theater performances, depicts a sleeping lion that when awakened, begins to dance joyfully. The piece exists in various forms and can be played by different combinations of Japanese instruments.

With this August Reign
Unchanging forever,
May these glorious reigns
Flourish through Eight Thousand Reigns.
♦♦♦
Snow clings on paired needles of the pine.

HANAKAZASHI (Floral Hair Ornament) duet for two shamisens by Seiho Kineya (1914—1996)

Hanakazashi are delicate floral hairpins with seasonal motifs worn by Maiko (apprentice Gaisha.) 

Seiho Kineya studied Nagauta shamisen with his father, Shoujiro Seiho and performed at Kabuki theatres throughout Japan beginning when he was 13 years old. During this time he extensively studied the classical shamisen genre. Seiho began composing in the 1940s. After his father passed away, he adapted the stage name Shojiro Ⅱ and three years later he changed his stage name to Seiho Kineya. Beginning in 1948 he studied composition and western music theory with Akihiro Norimatsu. Seiho worked both as a performer and a composer, but gradually concentrated on composition. He composed over 1,000 pieces, spanning many genres, including instrumental works for both traditional Japanese and western instruments, vocal music, theatre music, and movie soundtracks.

MIYAKO NO HARU by Yamase Shoin I (1845-1908)

Yamase was engaged as the first professor of koto music at the Tokyo Academy of Music and composed the present work for the inauguration ceremony concert of the institute in 1890. The title means "Spring in the Capital."

The brilliant light of sunrise: Not a shadow remains.
Not a streak in the sky.
The winds from the Kamo River are still;
Spring has come to the capital.
The trees, the meadows of field and mountain ... All are in flower.
The high slopes of Mt. Fuji and the province of Michinoku,
Once heaped high with white snow, are now bare.
♦♦♦
Melting, it flows in widening streams into the Bay of Naniwa
After long journeys from points far and wide across calm seas,
Ships put into harbor.
We are restored.

PERFORMER BIOGRAPHIES

Sumie Kaneko, koto, shamisen and voice, began studying the koto when she was five, and the following year performed her first broadcast for NHK. In 1995, Sumie won the Takasaki International Competition for koto performance. She studied Japanese traditional music for koto and shamisen at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music then studied Jazz vocal at Berklee College of Music in 2006. Performance highlights include Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, TED talk, Getty Center, Boston Ballet, Silk Road Project, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. She has also given workshops at Harvard and Princeton Universities, Wellesley College, Berklee College of Music and others. In 2014, her jazz fusion project, J-Trad and More, was invited to the Washington, DC Jazz Festival, co-sponsored by the Embassy of Japan. Sumie was the shamisen player for Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize-winning work "The Long Christmas Ride Home", and she has collaborated with many world instrumentalists including Kenny Endo, Kaoru Watanabe, On Ensemble and Yumiko Tanaka, as well as painters, dancers and calligraphers. She has toured in Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Jamaica (by Japan Foundation NY), Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and throughout the United States. sumiekanekomusic.com
 
Yoko Reikano Kimura, koto, shamisen and voice, is an enthusiastic supporter of contemporary music, a frequent collaborator with Western musicians and a performer of classical Japanese music in the Yamada school style. A resident of the US since 2010, Yoko is a founder of Duo YUMENO, with cellist Hikaru Tamaki, working to commission new music and expand the repertoire for these instruments. The Duo received a Chamber Music America Commissioning Award in 2014 and the Kyoto Aoyama Barock Saal Award in 2015. As a soloist, Yoko performed Kin'ichi Nakanoshima’s Shamisen Concerto at the National Olympic Memorial Center in 2004 and Daron Hagen’s Koto Concerto: Genji with the Euclid Quartet, Ciompi Quartet, Freimann Quartet and the Prairie Ensemble Orchestra in 2013. In 2014, she premiered Kaito Nakahori’s Japanese Footbridge for koto and chamber ensemble at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall, and in 2015, James Nyoraku Schlefer’s Concertante at the Round Top Music Festival. Yoko performs frequently with Kyo-Shin-An Arts and has worked with Heiner Goebbels, the Wien Solisten Trio, and Kenny Endo, among others. University performances have included Harvard, Texas A&M, New England Conservatory, and City University of New York. In addition, Yoko has toured in Poland, Switzerland, France, Lithuania, Korea, China, Israel, Qatar, Italy, Turkey and multiple countries in South America. yokoreikanokimura.com

James Nyoraku Schlefer, shakuhachi, is a Grand Master of the shakuhachi and one of only a handful of non-Japanese artists to have achieved this rank. He received the Dai-Shi-Han (Grand Master) certificate in 2001, and his second Shi-Han certificate in 2008, from the Mujuan Dojo in Kyoto. He has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Tanglewood and BAM, as well as multiple venues across the country and in Japan, Indonesia, Brazil and Europe. Schlefer first encountered the shakuhachi in 1979, while working towards a career as a flute player and pursuing an advanced degree in musicology. Today he is considered by his colleagues to be one of most influential Western practitioners of this distinctive art form. Known to his students as Nyoraku sensei, Schlefer established his own dojo in NYC in 1996. He also teaches shakuhachi at Columbia University, a broad spectrum of Western and World music courses at New York City College of Technology (CUNY), and performs and lectures at colleges and universities throughout the United States. As a composer, Schlefer has written multiple chamber and orchestral works combining Japanese and Western instruments as well as numerous pieces solely for traditional Japanese instruments. In December 2015, he was recognized by Musical America Worldwide as one of their “30 Top Professionals and Key Influencers” for his work both as a composer and Artistic Director of Kyo-Shin-An Arts. His writings about the shakuhachi and his career were published in 2018 on NewMusicBox and he was profiled by the National Endowment for the Arts’ “Arts Works Blog” in May 2016. His programming for Kyo-Shin-An Arts has also been recognized with two CMA/ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming (2013 and 2016). His orchestral music can be heard on the recording Spring Sounds Spring Season MSR Classics. nyoraku.com