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AKEMI NAITO: Strings & Time
For me, composing is a profoundly poetic activity. However the world may change or technologies progress, composition remains an unchanging foundation, one that is always my starting point. Sound has its own energies, and my method is to weave them together. Sound breathes and shapes itself into a musical work. Form is the end result.
I discover the true significance of a work in those artistic expressions that reach the core of the universe in an instant. It is my hope to create music that is simple yet deep. To grasp one moment of certainty.
New York City, where I have lived since 1991, enables me to examine my own being. Here, the spirit of individual style fit me like a glove, and I felt I wanted to delve into myself as deeply as I could. Yet, as a Japanese woman here, it is necessary to nurture within myself a perspective, a structure that is different from the Western ideas of time. For me, time is mal�iable, and it can be sublimated from a melodious moment into a time-space of infinite continuity.
In this city where various cultures intersect, one is made aware of one's roots. Simultaneously, things that are pure and moving leap easily over barriers of language and ethnicity.
I am convinced that the most beautiful moments in history are when something is communicated. That is why I continue speaking through music.
From myself, here and now, towards the infinite.
-Akemi Naito
Winter Shadow:
Winter Shadow for two guitars consists of two movements; a melodious first, and a technically free second.
In the first movement, I attempted to effectively portray the beauty of harmonics. I was made aware of the melodic nature of my music when I came to New York City in the fall of 1991. Currently, my interest lies in composing melodies that are simple and yet of depth. Composing becomes a profoundly poetic act from pondering the trace of a note, and exerting myself to grasp that moment of certainty and extend it. The second movement incorporates graphic notation in order to form a sound-space unobtainable through fixed notation. Many valuable suggestions from William Anderson helped to realize this piece.
I began working on this piece in December 1993, commissioned by Music From Japan. It is composed for and dedicated to both William Anderson and Oren Fader.
Rain, Calling Autumn:
Written for solo piano, Rain, Calling Autumn consists of three pieces. The title is taken from a poem by Chuya Nakahara. Each of the three pieces develops an acoustical idea as an important compositional concept. This idea in effect defines the direction of each piece. The first piece uses no special sound effects and relies on traditional piano performance. Confronted with a piano as an instrument, one of my challenges was how to express the self in a language of one who lives in this modern era.
In the second piece, the combination of the use of the sostenuto pedal and the silent depression of tone clusters in the low register brings out a deeply sonorous reverberation. I wanted to draw effectively with this sound world in hand as the main subject.
In the third piece, the gong-like sound, which is achieved by inserting a dime between the C-sharp strings inside the piano, permeates the whole. There is no direct correlation to the title poem itself, but the beauty of the title and the feeling of my inner world overlap with the poet's world and lead to the quotation of the title to this music.
The first piece was completed in August 1991, the second in August 1992, and the third in October 1994. It is dedicated to Aki Takahashi.
Interlude:
The first piece was completed in August 1991, the second in August 1992, and the third in October 1994. It is dedicated to Aki Takahashi. Trying to let my imagination flow with the orthodox instrumentation of cello and piano was a difficult task. Since I am always interested in fresh approaches to an instrument's capacities, I almost felt a sense of constraint hindering me from the very beginning in writing for a duo of these two instruments. It was as though tradition were weighing heavily on the possibilities for new approaches.
After much trial and error, I had a desire to compose a work which would resonate deep within the spirit. I hoped to make the essence of my music surface spontaneously. Thus, the title Interlude is intended to imply that this composition is an intimate sketch of my spirit.
It was composed for pianist Tomomi Ohrui and cellist Yohei Asaoka for their recital at the Carnegie Weill Hall.
Prior to this recital, I returned to Japan to attend the Japanese premiere of Rain, Calling Autumn, performed by Aki Takahashi in Yokohama. On that same day I learned of Toru Takemitsu's passing. It was when I was inspired deeply by his work The Dorian Horizon in my late teens, that I was convinced to make composition my life work, and since, this has always been a source, a point of origin, for me. In deep sorrow, I completed the final segment of this piece there in Tokyo.
This work is dedicated to the memory of Takemitsu's spirit.
Solitude:
By processing the saxophone electronically, the breath sound and key click can be effectively utilized. This is one of the attractions of the instrument.
The tones achieved from playing softly, too, expand with unexpected beauty. I wanted to compose a piece that would maximize the effect of these elements. In recording, two Lexicons were used to create two different kinds of reverberation. From the sensitive tones of soft notes to dynamic breath sound, it was thrilling for me to observe the expansion of such richly changing tones.
I am grateful for the deep understanding that Ulrich Krieger, for whom this was written, has shown this piece.
It was composed between the fall of 1991 through winter of 1992. This was my first composition after moving to New York City.
Electronic Landscape:
Electronic Landscape is my first composition for electronics using old analog synthesis.
Currently, with much interest in the world toward electronic music, I felt it only natural that in order to better my understanding toward the digital, it was necessary to be disciplined in analog as well.
I studied under Arthur Krieger at Columbia University from the fall of 1994 to the spring of 1995, and this is, so to speak, my end of term thesis. Following this term, the analog studio at Columbia was dismantled and is now no longer available. Those were the final, precious hours at the closing of an era.
I used mainly the Buchla Synthesizer on this piece. Laying down the sounds I made onto tape, then cutting them up and reconfiguring them to create my work, this was a process unique to analog and enabled me to experience the textures of these sounds fully. Electronic Landscape consists of four movements.
Strings & Time:
Strings & Time is finally complete with the addition of the third movement, and this recording is the premiere performance of the work in full.
I was first commissioned by the string ensemble, Mis en Loge. However, in the process of composing it, after finishing the first piece I felt the need for a second, and finishing the second, I again felt the need for a third.
There is a certain soothing quality that is characteristic of strings, and thus it fills me with a sense of possibility, to express the eternity from the distant past into the unknown future.
Secret Song
This is one of my early compositions.
At the time I was composing this, I was very much influenced by the guitar playing of Derek Bailey. Overlapping the sonority of the guitar with my own inner being, I wanted to search for all possible means of expression with that instrument. Guitarist Norio Sato made this possible for me.
Many years have passed since this work was first premiered, but the same approach still seems to me to be my basic working rhythm in composition.
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