The Painted Bird by Ayuo, Akikazu Nakamura, Aki Takahashi, Yoko Ueno, Junzo Tateiwa, Fumio Kai, Tomomi Adachi

"The Painted Bird Dancing in Tima and Space" performed by Ayuo, Akikazu Nakamura, Aki Takahashi, Yoko Ueno, Junzo Tateiwa, Fumio Kai, Youhshu Kamei, Kei Sakoda, Takui Matsumoto, and Tomomi Adachi

Details:

"The Painted Bird Dancing in Time and Space," by three composers, - premiered by leading performers of contemporary and classical music.

Lineup:

Ayuo (Vocals, medieval European psaltery, violin, guitar, composition)

Akikazu Nakamura (shakuhachi, composition), Tomomi Adachi (composition),

Aki Takahashi (piano), Yoko Ueno (voice, accordion), Junzo Tateiwa (Percussion), Fumiko Kai (violin), Youshu Kamei (violin), Kei Sakoda (viola), Takui Matsumoto (cello).

 The concert consists of 3 new works by 3 composers (Tomomi Adachi, Akikazu Nakamura, and Ayuo) inspired by "The Painted Bird." "The Painted Bird" is a novel by Jerzy Kosiński that was made into a joint Ukraine/Poland/Czech film in 2019. The original novel describes World War II as seen by a boy, considered either Gypsy, Jewish, or Oriental, wandering about small villages scattered around an unspecified country in Central and Eastern Europe. In the novel, he is also often mistaken for a descendant of the Mongolians.

The title "The Painted Bird" was drawn from an incident in the story. The boy, while in the company of a professional bird catcher, observes how the man took one of his captured birds and painted it several colors. Then he released the bird to fly in search of a flock of its kin, but when the painted bird came upon his own flock, they saw him as an intruder and viciously attacked the bird until it fell dead from the sky.

This is used as a metaphor for discrimination. A boy raised in a foreign country tries to go back to his native land but is discriminated against and attacked by those whom he sees as his own kind.

In the 2019 film, an artificially created language called Interslavic was used so none of the nationalities in Eastern Europe would be blamed for the discrimination and hate crimes that the boy in the story faces. This was done because discrimination happens everywhere, and the blame cannot be placed on a specific nationality.

PROGRAM:

1) Tomomi Adachi: String Quartet No. 42 - "A Butterfly Yawns with a Monkey (after Pavel Haas)" with percussion (Junzo Tateiwa) and voice (Yoko Ueno)

Pavel Haas was a Ukrainian-Moravian Jewish composer who studied with Janacek. He was killed in a concentration camp. It is dedicated to the dream of a universal language that can be understood everywhere.

2) Akikazu Nakamura: "White Moon" for Shakuhachi and String Quartet

Who painted these birds, and who let them die? "White Moon" is the moon colored in white. It is known in science that the color "white" contains all the wavelengths, including all the various difficulties and hardships in the world.

3) Ayuo's suite, "The Painted Bird, Dancing in Time and Space," is for string quartet, piano, medieval European string instruments, electric violin, accordion, shakuhachi, and voice and was 'inspired' by the semi-autobiographical novel "The Painted Bird" by Holocaust survivor Jerzy Kosiński.

However, in Ayuo's version, the story intersects the Middle Ages, World War II, and the present day, and depicts the racism and discrimination based on ethnic and cultural differences felt by an innocent child who has yet to come to grips with the idea of ethnic and racial distinctions.

The suite contains previously performed compositions such as Ayuo's "Eurasian Tango", which was choreographed by the Sir Richard Alston Dance Company and performed successfully in tours in the UK including a performance at the prestigious Sadler's Wells Theatre. "When illusion looks like reality, then reality becomes just a fantasy" is a string quartet by Ayuo that was often performed with classical ballet. "3 Goddesses" was originally composed for a contemporary dance performance. I include links to these compositions with dance performances below:

Ayuo - WHEN ILLUSION LOOKS LIKE REALITY, THEN REALITY BECOMES JUST A FANTASY

https://youtu.be/aBPzQp0L64U

Ayuo - RAYS OF THE SUN

https://youtu.be/-5TC8OVcNfM

Ayuo - Eurasian Tango 5

Sir Richard Alston Dance Company, UK

https://youtu.be/kN04hzT875s

Ayuo - 3 Goddesses

https://youtu.be/u7PidyUVs08

Theme for a Stateless Wanderer

Ayuo - Eurasian Tango 1 performed with contemporary dance

From the German performance. Accordion played by Marko Kassl.

https://youtu.be/csjWouFAOow

Ticket details are as follows:

Adults 4,500 yen in advance (5,000 yen at the door)

Students 2,000 yen in advance (2,500 yen at the door)

Ticket with CD 6,000 yen (available only for Marmelo and Ayuo himself)

For inquiries and ticket reservations, please contact: Marmelo

E-mail: marmeloyama@gmail.com

TEL 03-5627-7583 FAX 03-5627-7584

e+ e-plus box office code: 380824-0001

Ayuo - Vocals, Guitar, Bouzouki, Lyrics, Compositions
Ayuo has recorded 18 solo albums for labels such as Epic-Sony, JVC Victor, Midi, John Zorn's Tzadik label, and others, on which he recorded with Peter Hammill, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Carlos Alomar, Takehisa Kosugi, Maddy Prior, Danny Thompson, Clive Deamer, Dave Mattacks, and many others. Growing up with an Iranian stepfather in a very international environment with American, British, and Chinese people in New York City, his music brings together the ancient musical link on the Silk Road from Europe to Persia, Central Asia, China, Korea, and Japan by exploring the possibilities of using ancient music to create a new contemporary style of music. He is also a poet, essayist, and illustrator, and his autobiography was published in 2018.
https://ayuomusic.wixsite.com/mysite


Akikazu Nakamura (Shakuhaci, Compositions)
He studied under Katsuya Yokoyama and several masters of the Komuso shakuhachi tradition. He studied composition and jazz theory at Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music Graduate School. He has performed in more than 150 cities and forty countries worldwide under the sponsorship of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, among others. While still grounding his roots in the classical tradition handed down by Komuso monks, Nakamura has delved into different musical genres, including Western classical music, rock, and jazz. He has received much recognition for his performances and recordings. He is also active as a composer. A member of the Japan Society of Contemporary Music. Teaching at Tokyo Gakugei Univ., Yamanashi Gakuin Univ. Toho Gakuen College of Drama and Music, Graduate School of Senzoku Gakuen College of Music. His literary work “Missoku changes your body” and “The Overtone” have created sensations in Japan.
https://akikazu.jp/

 ADACHI Tomomi (family name is ADACHI), born in Kanazawa, Japan, in 1972, is a performer, composer, sound poet, installation artist, and occasional theater director. He studied philosophy and aesthetics at Waseda University in Tokyo. He has played improvised music with voice, live electronics, and self-made instruments. He had composed works for his own group “Adachi Tomomi Royal Chorus” which is a punk-style choir. He has performed contemporary music: vocal, live-electronics, or performance works by John Cage, Cornelius Cardew, Christian Wolff, Tom Johnson, Dieter Schnebel, Takahashi Yuji, Yuasa Joji, and Fluxus including the world premiere and Japan premiere of Cage’s “Variations VII,” “Europera 5,” and “Waterwalk”.
https://www.adachitomomi.com/

Aki Takahashi is a Japanese pianist specializing in contemporary classical music. She has released numerous recordings, and many 20th-century composers, including John Cage, Morton Feldman, Peter Garland, Alvin Lucier, Isang Yun, Joji Yuasa, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Carl Stone, Maki Ishii, and Takehisa Kosugi, have written pieces for her. She has also performed works by Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, Iannis Xenakis, Tōru Takemitsu, and her brother, Yuji Takahashi. Takahashi has toured extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia, and served as Artist-in-Residence at the State University of New York at Buffalo from 1980–81. She was a guest professor at the California Institute of the Arts in 1984 and 1985.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aki_Takahashi

Yoko Ueno (Vocals, Accordion, Bass)
Yoko Ueno is well known as a singer with a diversity of different vocal colors and styles, with which she sings acapella, rock, pop, ethnic music, and contemporary music, among other styles of music. For over 30 years, she has composed, arranged, and sung on movie scores, animations, and commercials. She has also been active as a performer of improvisational music in live performances. Since 2011, she has been active in creating new compositions in the experimental music scene.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoko_Ueno

Junzo Tateiwa (Percussion)
Junzo Tateiwa is a multi-percussionist specializing in Middle Eastern and Indian music. He studied Indian Tabla with Masaki Yoshimi and Prafulla Athalye, Darbuka with Susu Ppanin, and Serdar Bagtir,  Frame Drum with Glen Velez, Tonbak with Farbod Yadollahi, and Iranian Daf with Hossein Rezainia. He also studied drums with Minoru Sakata. He not only performs the classical traditional music of the Middle East and India, but he also uses its instruments and musical styles in rock, pop, jazz, and classical music. He creates music for both traditional Indian and Middle Eastern dances as well as for contemporary dance. He is also active as a composer-arranger for electronic instrument makers such as Korg and others.
http://tateiwajunzo.wix.com/tateiwajunzo