[2024-09-29] Music inherited, music passed on: the legacy of the “musicien complet” — Boulez's Répons

Date: Sunday, 29 September 2024. Concert 15:00; doors 14:15.
Venue: Kunitachi College of Music, Auditorium, Main Hall
Tickets: All seats unreserved: ¥1,500
Conductor, composer and clarinet: Yasuaki Itakura
Live electronics: 今井慎太郎
Sound: 片桐健順
Performers: Kunitachi Philharmoniker
Students taking Contemporary Music Performance Practice, and others

Programme

Heinz Holliger: Pneuma — Japanese premiere of the original version
Yasuaki Itakura: Renet dans le neuve — world premiere of a Kunitachi College of Music commission
Pierre Boulez: Répons
Pianos: 平井皐 and 橋詰香菜; harp: 三浦麻葉; vibraphone: 若林侑花
Glockenspiel: 西村和; cimbalom: Junko Sakimura; electronics: 今井慎太郎; sound: 片桐健順

Presented by: Kunitachi College of Music
Planning: 菊池幸夫 and 川島素晴
Production: Kunitachi College of Music Performing Arts Center
Supported by: Rohm Music Foundation
Endorsed by: Japan Society for Contemporary Music and Japan Federation of Composers

Music inherited, music passed on: from twentieth-century music towards the future

Held every autumn since 2005, this series presents masterpieces of contemporary music—music inherited—alongside new works by composition faculty—music passed on.
The 2017 concert, which received an Encouragement Award at the 16th Yoshio Sagawa Music Awards, centred on the Japanese premiere of the revised version of Boulez's
Répons. Alongside challenging and large-scale works performed mainly by performance students, the series has also included
experimental music by composition students, regularly attracting attention in contemporary music circles.

19th concert: the lineage of the “musicien complet”

This programme was conceived as a culmination, marking the final appearance in the series of Yasuaki Itakura, who has conducted it every year since 2011.
First, Boulez's Répons returns after seven years, as one of the most memorable works in the twelve concerts. The work normally places the orchestra
in the centre of the audience, with listeners surrounding it. This performance deliberately places the orchestra below the stage.
This was an active choice intended to give more listeners an ideal listening environment, avoiding positions
in which the orchestra is heard from behind or from the side.
The regular composition-student contribution is normally performed without a conductor. Holliger's Pneuma, performed in 2019, was an exception:
a joint project conducted by Itakura that drew attention in the contemporary music world. That performance was the Japanese premiere of the reduced version;
this time it will be the Japanese premiere of the original version.
Premieres of new works are a central pillar of the series. Here, a new work by Itakura himself, who has been composing prolifically in recent years,
will be premiered with Itakura both playing the clarinet and conducting.
Boulez, Holliger and Itakura share the quality of being a “musicien complet”—a complete musician.
This description of someone whose musical abilities encompass conducting, performance, composition and teaching symbolises the programme.
By summing up this journey with Itakura, the concert explores what an ideal musician might be.
Programme planning: 川島素晴, Associate Professor, Kunitachi College of Music

Yasuaki Itakura — conductor, composer, clarinet

After attending the music high school attached to Tokyo University of the Arts, Itakura graduated from the university's Faculty of Music. He went to France on a French government scholarship
and graduated from the Paris municipal conservatory and the Paris Conservatoire. His studies with the late Henriette Puig-Roget
laid the foundations for his varied performing career. As a clarinettist, he has appeared with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra,
the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and others. He made his conducting debut in 1996 with works by Akira Nishimura at the third Kanagawa Arts Festival in Yokohama. Since then,
he has conducted actively, particularly in contemporary repertoire. He has been invited to festivals in Japan and abroad, including the Suntory Summer Festival,
the Saito Kinen Festival Matsumoto, Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa subscription concerts, the Présences festival in France,
Music from Japan in New York and Aspects des Musiques d'Aujourd'hui in Caen, France.
His conducting repertoire is wide-ranging, and his performances of contemporary works in particular
have received high acclaim. In 2016 he guest-conducted the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine's subscription concerts and produced
and conducted two concerts at the Suntory Summer Festival. He has been Music Director of Tokyo Sinfonietta since 2001. He received the
18th Kenzo Nakajima Music Award, and the Music Competition of Japan Committee's Special Award in 1997, 1999 and 2015.
He is a visiting professor at Kunitachi College of Music.