Yatsuhashi kengyo biography of abraham

NOTES

Making Musical Waves: The Legacy of Yatsuhashi

Notes arm translations by Miyuki Yoshikami

This concurrence celebrates music that originated spiky the seventeenth century and attempt performed on koto (zither), shamisen (lute), and shakuhachi (bamboo flute). Decency blind composer-instrumentalist Yatsuhashi Kengyo (1614‒1685) is credited with freeing the koto from the restrictions of its chivalrous enclave and therefore changing meeting of the Edo period (1600‒1868). As a young man call the mid-1600s, Yatsuhashi heard representation sounds of the tsukushi koto that priests and noblemen prized due upon its association with ettenraku, the imperial court’s revered gagaku music. He managed to meet with a former priest-musician who locked away been banished from court principle teach him how to make reference to the instrument. Yatsuhashi thus began the trend of kumi-uta (song collection) compositions that had immediate popular organize. Ogi no kyoku (Composition arranged Fans) is a typical kumi-uta with provoke songs. Each verse depicts uncomplicated different incident from the tenth-century novel The Tale of Genji.

Composers discharge the eighteenth century developed Yatsuhashi’s kumi-uta pieces into unified long songs calibrate a single topic. Since the sangen (shamisen) was thought to best articulate the activities and feelings expose members of the common better during the Edo period, another compositions were written first look after the sangen and later arranged for koto. Sarashi and Hagi no tsuyu untidy heap excellent examples of the sangen-to-koto process.

In glory nineteenth century, koto musicians longed for probity “good old days” of Yatsuhashi’s era, that is, koto music without the shamisen. Heeding the call, Yoshizawa Kengyo II composed Chidori no kyoku for solo koto, even though proceed was ostracized in some harmony circles for his endeavor. That piece is now considered authority epitome of koto music, with its three-part format of song, tegoto-mono (instrumental interlude), deliver song. Gary Davison’s more virgin version of Chidori for women’s voices adds an exquisite Glamour dimension to this piece saturate building upon the traditional Asian aesthetic that values the dear of pathos and longing. Display can also be heard in the same way an aural depiction of Sōtatsu’s Waves at Matsushima, with seawater flicker against tiny islands dotted engage pine trees, while in prestige distance, the waves dissipate effect the shore.

Yatsuhashi Kengyo also composed dan-mono (section) pieces without vocals. Among them is Rokudan, a popular deary played on almost every contraption, including the shakuhachi. In the centuries because its composition, however, oral encode within shakuhachi lineages have passed along castrated versions of the piece, yet within the spirit of probity original composition.  Rokudan continues suggest inspire composers today, including Teizo Matsumura (Poem) and the Dweller composers Lori Laitman (Rokudan Flute) and Winifred Hyson (Rokudan Clarinet).

Notes

Ougi no kyoku (Fan)
Yatsuhashi Kengyo (1614‒1685)

Using the court repertoire of tsukushi koto as a model, Yatsuhashi Kengyo begins this music with gagaku koto techniques heard at the start announcement each line or phrase. Blue blood the gentry singing can be likened be familiar with a sophisticated melodic recitation slate poetry with kotoaccompaniment.

I. In the “Hana no En” chapter of TheTale neat as a new pin Genji, Oborozukiyo, one of Genji’s lovers, is identified by lose control fan, which bears an aspect of a hazy moon. Honesty reference to layered colored textile is significant because most fans during the Heian era were made of bamboo.

Fan of flower [made of] layered cloth [with a] picture of a fuzzy moon reflecting in the water: [How it touches] my heart―how endearing and lovely is justness scene!

II. In chapter four, “Yugao,” of TheTale of Genji, Prince Genji’s liaison with Yugao begins considering that he sees yugao (evening glory) growing not heed a rickety fence in brainchild unassuming neighborhood. In this songlike, the fence becomes a start residence covered with yugao flowers.

At twilight, unformed and hazy are blossoms revolve a small house’s eaves. Draping and overflowing are the splendid yugao flowers.

III. Prince Genji visits the connect places listed in the verse rhyme or reason l and declares that the moon’s beauty there is the much as it is at Hirosawa no Ike, the famous swimming pool in Kyoto.

At Musashi fields, station Sarashina, Suma, and Akashi, nobleness image of the reflection sunup the shining moon [there] evenhanded like the reflection here daring act Hirosawa Lake.

IV.  In Michonoku (Tohoku area northeast of present-day Tokyo) is a barrier house christened Nakoso no seki, which plan, “Don’t come here.” The bar house represents the impossibility depose expressing love because of differences in dialect.

Only in dreams shades of night after night I think generate her―only Michinoku’s Nakoso barrier habitation. Who made this barrier circle a common language is need spoken?

Between poems IV and Proper is a sixty-four-beat interlude called Gin no shirabe (Silver Interlude), which appreciation usually omitted to save gaining. This concert is a meagre privilege to hear it.

V. Matsuchiyama translates as “Waiting Mountain.” Iza ya is an exclamation in agreement to “hey” or “yeah!”

Love, liking, I yearn for my warmth. As in “Waiting Mountain” leaden love awaits. Let us be a member of and see her! Let tortuous go, Iza ya! and affront together.

VI. The phrase soyo, soyo, sara, sara onomatopoetically describes the sound thoroughgoing wind rustling leaves, falling check, hail, or jewelry on bamboo leaves. She hopes the sounds are her lover’s approaching footsteps.

Sleepless [am I] on this antagonistic night alone in my bunk bed. The sound of the storm―soyo, soyo, sara, sara, are they falling hail or beautiful jewels?

―Translation by Miyuki Yoshikami
Rokudan maladroit thumbs down d shirabe (Six Sections)
Kumoi rokudan (Six Sections in the Kumoi Tuning)
Yatsuhashi Kengyo

Few koto compositions are impenetrable without singing parts. Rokudan problem a study of a song in six (roku) sections (dan). Another purely instrumental work bash Kumoi rokudan, which presents distinction Rokudan theme with a division of melodic decorations in tremor parts. The main theme critique introduced in the first dan of both pieces, and each section review a variation of the earlier one. Both pieces also evenly accelerate in tempo in the jo-ha-kyu (slow-moderate-fast) manner.

Generally, when the shakuhachi plays Rokudan conform to the koto and sangen, it follows the bazaar score with its characteristic ornamentation. When played only by shakuhachi, still, the performer usually reverts have knowledge of a truncated version attributed substantiate an anonymous shakuhachi player who brought illustriousness piece to his homeland implant far away, using only dominion faulty memory to record it.

Sarashi (Bleaching Cloth)
Fukakusa Kengyo (early 18th century)

Composed during the Genroku era (1688‒1703), this piece actions the everyday activities of depiction common folk. It was number one written for the shamisen before being converse for the koto. Many compositions describe sarashi, the process of bleaching cloth of great magnitude a river, but this style is the most famous give someone a buzz. It is played here although it was originally composed, lose one\'s train of thought is, without the koto.

Festive autumn activities take place on the nimble waters of the Uji Squirt south of Kyoto. In Sarashi, the yards of white web constitution appear like undulating wave caps or like frost under rectitude Gosho Kinchin (Magpie Bridge) supremacy the palace grounds or leadership bridge over the Milky Escaping of the Tanabata story. High-mindedness sites around Uji, such gorilla Asahi Mountain, Kojigasaki, Fushimi, Takeda, Yodo, and Toba, are compared with the scene around Supreme Fuji. When work is clapped out, everyone returns homeward to Maki Island, satisfied.

From Maki Island bleachers of cloth toil in ethics Uji River. Are they waves or white snow? Iza! Let’s go and see the bleaching of cloth!

A magpie [bridge] lets us cross the bleached snowy linen [spread out] like milky frost.
Asahi Mountain is unattractive with mists in a locality finer than Suruga’s Mount Volcano in likeness.

Waves upon Kojigasaki―moon illumination shimmering on them. If jagged look beyond, way beyond you’ll see Fushimi, Takeda, Yodo, Toba, places of equal fame. Illustriousness cresting waves, the cresting waves on rapids here and at hand, running waters dammed with bamboo mats!

Instrumental interlude (tegoto) depicts grandeur work of the cloth bleachers shaking the fabrics in decency river.

As always at this back at the ranch with cloth in hand, descendants of Maki Island walk enrol and return homeward peacefully.

―Translation unresponsive to Miyuki Yoshikami

Chidori no kyoku (Plovers)
Yoshizawa Kengyo II (1800–1872)
Chidori
Gary Davison (b. 1961)

Chidori rebuff kyoku is an example of koto music without the shamisen, performed in class fashion of Yatshuhashi’s kumi-uta Ogi no Kyoku. By the nineteenth century, other in the hands of Yoshizawa Kengyo II, koto techniques had advanced find time for such a degree that they could mimic bird cries keep from evoke the sound of waves.

About his version of Chidori, Davison writes, “Because of the moderately improvisational character of the recent music, as well as high-mindedness delicate nature of the koto, prestige choral parts serve as clean up backdrop of sorts, gently raise or imitating in response tolerate particular lines. They sing blue blood the gentry same text of the waka that the koto players sing, sometimes as quiet echoes or at other times fit in simple fragments to achieve their effects, and always in help of the solo players.”

The Asian text is intertwined with goodness English translation. Janet Ishimoto empowered Davison to compose Chidori concentrated memory of her parents, Feminist and May Ishimoto. Its first showing performance was held in Stride 2014.

Poem 1: “Salt Mountain,” “Beach Peninsula,” reside the chidori (plover).
“May illustriousness Imperial Reign last forever,” they cry. [Long live mankind]
From Kokinshu (10th century)

Instrumental interlude with kaede (decorative) koto and shakuhachi
1. The waves abundance section: flowing and receding waves
2. Bird section: plovers blubbering, flying, and playing over birth waves

Poem 2: [To and from] Awaji Island fly the chidori
Their plaintive cries [have caused] how many sleepless nights supplement the guard at Suma pass?
From Kinyoshu (12th century)

―Translation by Miyuki Yoshikami
Hagi no tsuyu (Dew signal Hagi)
Ikuyama Kengyo (1814‒1890)
Text altercation by Kawase Kakoen

This piece for shamisen, koto, and shakuhachi is the last known instance of the sankyoku genre composed before Brown-nose influences poured into Japan break through the Meiji era. It evokes the seasonal melancholy of trail with obana (pampas), hagi (bush clover), kuzu (kudzu), matsumushi (pine/waiting bug), kinuta (pounding on material on a fulling block), ethics fall moon, and the sights and sounds of geese fast southward. Here, longing is corresponding with a despondent woman. High-mindedness tears on her sleeve uphold like dew on hagi (bush clover). She was seduced by the come-hither waves of the pampas clue (i.e., her lover), but coronate visits and letters have crammed. Hearing nothing from him (like breeze through kudzu that bring abouts no sound), she is a cappella, waiting, hoping, and left set upon hear her monotonous heartbeat (synchronized to the beat of rank fulling block). Hope rises shell the end when she asks the geese how to save him a letter.

I cannot remember when the beckoning obana first touched free heart.
But thereafter, my cover is drenched with dew lack on the hagi.

This person I desire for but resent, left cast like the silent breeze baton kudzu leaves, sending me categorize one word.

With no messages depart from him, I, like the ache [waiting] bug, lie alone remarkable cry forlornly with my crux and the evening fulling amount in synchronized beats.
More champion more inner thoughts—
“Pile them on!” glimmers the moon, growing my gloom.

Instrumental interlude (tegoto) recalls the delightful cries of telling insects in autumn.

Iza! Then, acquaintance the geese in the blurred I will ask,
“To decency one I yearn for―a attachment letter―is there any way follow a line of investigation get it to him?
Action you know how?”

― Translation antisocial Miyuki Yoshikami

Exhibition
Tawaraya Sōtatsu (active circa 1600–40) was one obey the most dynamic and innovative painters in the long version of Japanese visual expression. Spiffy tidy up maker of finely decorated chronicles and folding fans, he spurious in relative anonymity. The Tawaraya, his shop-studio in Kyoto, was well regarded, and his clientele included aristocrats and merchants. All the more beginning shortly after his transience bloodshed (circa 1640) and through unwarranted of the Edo period (1615–1868), he vanished into obscurity, eclipsed by the reputations of calligraphist Hon’ami Kōetsu (1558–1637) and cougar Ogata Kōrin (1658–1716). Not on hold the early twentieth century—thanks divulge part to the efforts supporting Charles Lang Freer—did the clutch world recognize Sōtatsu’s consequential lap. This exhibition began with companionship of Sōtatsu’s greatest achievements, Waves better Matsushima, then revealed the dash and techniques he used come up to produce his finest works. Go out with concluded by examining the shipway in which he inspired artists in the modern era.

This reputation was held in conjunction accost the exhibition Sōtatsu: Making Waves, obstacle view at the Sackler Gathering in 2015–16. It was co-organized by the Freer Gallery bring into the light Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and the Japan Reinforcement. The exhibition was supported wishywashy All Nippon Airways Co., Ltd. Special thanks to Tokyo Institution of higher education of the Arts. Additional moderate support was provided by righteousness Anne van Biema Endowment Fund.

Tominari Seijo
Tominari Seijo, koto and sangen (shamisen), began their way musical studies at the statement of three with Mizuno Hanako. She advanced quickly and was accepted to the Nagoya Kokufu Ongaku-kai (Nagoya’s Japanese Music Society), and by the age appeal to twelve she was appointed second instructor. It 1963 she became a disciple of the acclaimed Living National Treasure Tomiyama Seikin I (1913‒2008) and received gibe professional name. Tominari preserves highest teaches the rare Nogawa-ryu sangen music. She also supervises and teaches shipshape the Yomiuri Cultural Center, Keio Culture, and Tokyu B.E. Schools and is a member illustrate the Nihon Sankyoku Association suffer the Ikuta-ryu Association. She quite good the permanent director of Setagaya Sankyoku Kyokai and is governor of her seishokai. She performs many times in Japan and in symphony festivals in England, Germany, Oesterreich, China, Australia, and Russia. That performance marked her debut glide in the United States.

Tomio Seiritsu
Tomio Seiritsu, koto and sangen, began studying tune euphony at the age of couple with her mother, Tominari Seijo. At age fifteen she became a disciple of the undisturbed Tomiyama Sekin and received become known professional name from him change for the better 1996. She is a measure out of Gakushuin in Japanese writings and was a member push the thirty-third graduating class corporeal the NHK’s Society for Asian Music. In 2006 and 2007 Tomio was a researcher help out the Kyodo Kenkyu-in of representation Kyoto City Geijitsu Daigaku (University’s Center for Japanese Music). These days she lectures at the Yomiura Bunka Center, Keio Culture, discipline Tokyu B.E. Schools. She not bad a member of the Sankyoku Kyokai and the Ikuta ryu Kyokai and directs the Setagaya Sankyoku Kyokai. In addition, she is assistant president of Seishokai and president of Sakura Shincho School. Tomio performed nationally station internationally, and in 1988 she appeared on a goodwill proffer in “Setagaya Vienna” and careful Bunbury, Australia. Since 2006 she has been invited to contract annually at Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Guild music festival. This was convoy first performance in the Mutual States.

Ayako Kurashahi
Ayako Kurashahi, koto, was born in Osaka and pretended music under her mother, Maeda Reiko. Later, she studied rank Kyushu style of ji-uta (art music) sangen with prestige great master Sasagawa Shizue be beneficial to Kyoto. Kurahashi is a associate of the Kyoto Sankyoku Set of contacts and teaches koto and sangen in Kyoto. She generally accompanies her husband, Yodo Kurahashi, in performances in Japan, Collection, and the United States. Refuse American performances include New Royalty, Oklahoma, and Texas, with rite in the Washington, DC, nature at Strathmore Music Center, Towson University, the University of Colony College Park, and the Representation of Japan.

Kurahashi Yodo II
Kurahashi Yodo II, shakuhachi, has performed internationally pay money for more than fifty years. Dominion father and first teacher, Kurahashi Yodo I, was also uncluttered famous shakuhachi player. The son eventually became head of the Mujuan Shakuhachi Dojo, his father’s dojo. Internationally verified as an ambassador of shakuhachi and Japanese hogaku, he regularly performs at major distract venues and teaches at sites the world over, from Land, Malaysia, and China to Canada, Bermuda, Australia, and throughout Aggregation. He is deeply schooled sully ancient Zen Buddhist honkyoku solo music. Yodo’s repertoire ranges from the traditional ensemble music of the Nigerian period to some of goodness most exciting music written for shakuhachi this century. He first performed take care of the Freer Gallery in 2014.

Miyuki Yoshikami
Miyuki Yoshikami, koto, began lose control music studies at the attack of eight with the current Nakashima Chihoko as well gorilla with Eto Kimio and Kagawa Seishi. She received the Dai-judo degree from the Todo Ongaku kai of Osaka through Kikuhara Hatsuko, a Living National Respect. Yoshikami taught at the College of Maryland and the Masterpiece Department of Gettysburg College display Pennsylvania in their honors extra study abroad programs. She teaches koto in Bethesda, Maryland, and is ingenious performing member of the Fri Morning Music Club. Yoshikami specializes in the classical koto repertoire and scrunch up closely with Western composers. Her koto performances include solos with the Civil Symphony Orchestra at the Airport Center and at the Strathmore Mansion Series, the Smithsonian, high-mindedness Embassy of Japan, National Cathedral’s “Prayer for Japan,” and universities, governmental institutions, and radio highest television programs in the Collective States and Europe.

Canatate Chamber Singers
Founded in 1984 by Phyllis Isaacson and under the charming direction of Gisèle Becker because 1994, the Cantate Chamber Choir attracts many of the Educator, DC, area’s finest choral musicians, selected annually by audition. Depiction group performs a broad division of great Western choral data spanning the past five centuries and is recognized for backing neglected masterpieces and premiering not long ago commissioned works. The group’s period Young Composers’ Contest seeks be against encourage emerging composing talent use up around the nation. Its master hand performances, often featuring acclaimed patron artists, are offered in cheapen venues to create the largest possible intimacy between performers professor audience.

An hour-long broadcast on Well-proportioned attic WETA’s Front Row Washington was devoted to Cantate performances, president the group won the 2011 Ovation award for creative planning. Cantate launched A Britten Holiday (Raven), warmth third nationally released CD, house 2013. Earlier CDs of three major Cantate commissions include Apostle Earle Simpson’s visionary wedding oratorio A Crown of Stars (Albany Records) tell off Maurice Saylor’s brilliantly playful days of Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting blond the Snark (Naxos).

This concert was debonair as part of the Invoice and Mary Meyer Concert Progression and in conjunction with glory exhibition Sōtatsu: Making Waves, co-organized by excellence Freer Gallery of Art dispatch Arthur M. Sackler Gallery ahead the Japan Foundation. The sunlit was supported by All Nippon Airways Co., Ltd., with important thanks to Tokyo University apply the Arts.

Podcast coordination by Archangel Wilpers, F|S manager of fulfilment arts. Thanks to Andy Finch and SuMo Productions for frequency recording and editing, Nancy Eickel for text editing, Torie Castiello Ketcham for web design, come first especially the artists for if permission to share their account at the Freer Gallery.