Sunday 20 and 27 December 2009, 2 pm - 9 pm:
Two works by Hiromi Ishii:
Summer Grasses (2004) - acousmatic (German Premiere)
Ryum (2008) - Video
Hiromi Ishii on "Ryum":
"Ryum" intends to create a close relationship between visual- and music-part in the sense of gagaku and noh (traditional Japanese music), and their aesthetics. This piece does not include any sudden explosions, or surprising interruptions as they are not the expression ways of gagaku elegance. The subtle changes and slowly floating transformations and percussive sounds which give from time to time accents to the floating phrases are the manner of this piece.
The audio part consists of an accumulation of fragmental sounds of Japanese instruments which have been processed to produce ‘between sounds’ of gagaku and noh.
The visual part was transformed from only one photo. Ryum means “dream stream”.
Hiromi Ishii
studied general composition in Tokyo, electroacoustic music at the Aufbaustudium (graduate course) of Musikhochschule Dresden under Wilfried Jentzsch, and later at City University London with Simon Emmerson and Denis Smalley where she was conferred her PhD degree. Her research, ‘composing electroacoustic music relating to Japanese traditional music’, was supported by an ORS Award Scheme scholarship of the UK. Her pieces have been invited and presented at music festivals such as CYNETart Festival Dresden, the International symposium at Folkwang Hochschule Essen, the Electroacoutic Music Festival Florida (granted by Japan Foundation), EXPO 966 by Sonic Arts Network UK, and broadcast by the WDR, MDR, Radio Berlin and Antwerp Radio. In 2006 she was invited as a guest composer by ZKM Karlsruhe. Currently, she is working as a curator of visual music. As a lecturer she taught at Shobi University and Institute of Sound Technique in Japan, and is currently giving workshops and lectures world wide in Japanese, English and German.
Hiromi Ishii