12x Holland, Japan

oktober 2001, Hirado, Japan

Invited by the local government, I lived in Hirado, a small town in the south east of Japan, for two months. I studied traditional music and culture, performed concerts with my viola, and gave workshops for schoolchildren and amateur musicians. The central idea I wanted to communicate, was how easy it is to compose when you listen well and feel free to express yourself. Often expression gets distracted by technical demands. By leaving out the usual complexity of notation and fixed melodic content, we could focus on the core of real-time creation of new music, which was an immediate realisation of our personal ideas. We improvised a lot, worked on musical communication and I developed new notation methods.
The final project was the performance of an interactive 45 minute composition, created and played by about 100 musicians during the Hirado Culture Festival. Composing and conducting merged into the real-time creation of a symphony. By giving visual cues and playing musical material for them to imitate, I directed the various sections and then I played solo viola over the top.
More materials about Japan:
www.twaalfhoven.net under button "WORDS".
Check the site www.12xholland.nl for my diary, photo’s and the general report.