Shô et sheng : Répertoire contemporain I, analyse musicale et le rôle novateur des maîtres

Mardi 14 janvier 2020, 14h30 – 17h30
Salle Stravinsky, IRCAM

Quick enlargement of repertoire for sho is enabled both by restoration of Japanese ancient instruments and by creative collaboration between composers and players. This presentation will focus on the latest phase of solo and ensemble repertoire for sho along with these two points.

Short history of thirty years of contemporary sho music in Japan will be surveyed. The survey will start with Toshi Ichiyanagi and his piece for sho in 1980’s, which developed the new stage of contemporary repertoire. Also influential are the fertile productions in the National Theatre realized by Toshiro Kido, who had been the chief director of the Theatre and produced Stockhausen’s LICHT DER JAHRESLAUF (1977) and Jean-Claude Erois’ A l’approche du feu meditant…… (1983) before rebuilding the ancient Japanese traditional instruments in 1990’s.

Performing in the Gagaku ensemble Reigakusya, some sho players are leading their original projects including restoration of ancient instruments, international educative appeal, pursuing cross-cultural music and so on. The emerging style of sho performance is developing with some female players like Tamami Tono and of Sho Girls (trio of sho ) who have been co-working with younger composers. Their collaboration will be introduced together with a work- in-progress electroacoustic collective creation.

Mikako MIUZNO Pieces were performed in France (Bourges, Paris) Austria (Salzburg), Hungary (Budapest), Germany (GEDOK), Italy (Venice, Alba, Treviso, Udine), Republic of Moldova (Ars Poetica), ISEA2000 and 2002, ISCM2003 and 2010, EMS2010 (Shanghai), Musicacoustica2010 (Beijing), ACMP2011, 2012, 2013, 2016, 2018, 2019, WOCMAT2013, ICMC2017,2018, 2019 and in several cities in Japan. She have received several prizes like Ars Poetica, Japan-France contemporary music contest, Japan Foundation for Orchestral Music, Aichi Art Prize, Suntory Saji-Keizo prize and so on. In 2009, new orchestral piece Milford Pond is premiered by Aichi Central Symphonic Orchestra. Writings includes Terminology of the French Philosophy (2017), Remoteness and Compensation in Electroacoustic Music (2016), The History of Japanese Contemporary Music After WWⅡ (2006), Space Concept in the Contemporary Compositions (2001).

President of JSEM (Japanese Society of Electronic Music), a steering member of JSSA (Japanese Society of Sonic Arts) and DRA (Design Research Association), and a directional member of Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra and Aichi Triennale. Now engaging in the Kaken research concerning the idea and the theory of <timbre> in the contemporary instrumental pieces and electroacoustic music.

The Japanese mouth organ shō as well as the Chinese mouth organ sheng have figured prominently in a number of works by both Western and Asian composers since the 1990s. This presentation analyses the transformation of ‘myths’ attached to these instruments and partly inherent to its traditional performance style in works by Toshio Hosokawa, Helmut Lachenmann, Chaya Czernowin and Yūji Takahashi, among others. The analyses are guided by the concept of “hypolepsis”, dervied from Jan Assmann’s eminent study on “cultural memory”, designating a conceptual approach which does not completely negate traditional symbolism and functions, but also allows for their criticism and reflection during the process of appropriation. Different positions in the area of conflict between myth reception and myth criticism are apparent in all analysed works and they obviously are connected with both the composers’ sociocultural embeddedness and the ways in which specific ethnomusicological knowledge is acquired and applied during the compositional process. The analyses make obvious that cultural stereotypes based on mythological essentialization, occasionally harking back to 19th and 20th century exoticism, are necessarily implicit to both Western and Asian composers’ aesthetics (sometimes in explicitly critical or negativist form), especially when confronting such a unique type of instrument that hardly finds an equivalent in Western musical contexts.

Christian Utz is professor for music theory and music analysis at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz and associate professor at the University of Vienna. He has been visiting professor at the National Chiao-Tung University (Taiwan) and The University of Tokyo. Utz received a PhD degree at the Institute for Musicology of Vienna University with a thesis on New Music and Interculturality. From John Cage to Tan Dun (published in 2002 as vol. 52 of Beihefte zum Archiv für Musikwissenschaft). In 2015 he completed his habilitation in musicology with a collection of published articles on Bewegungen im Klang-Zeit-Raum. Zur performativen Analyse und Wahrnehmung posttonaler Musik und ihren historischen Voraussetzungen.

Utz’ second monograph Komponieren im Kontext der Globalisierung. Perspektiven für eine Musikgeschichte des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts was published by transcript in 2014 (a revised and expanded English translation of this book is scheduled to appear in 2020). Utz has been co-editor of Lexikon der Systematischen Musikwissenschaft (Laaber 2010), Lexikon Neue Musik (Metzler/Bärenreiter 2016), the book series musik.theorien der gegenwart (6 vols., Pfau 2007–2013) as well as the book Vocal Music and Contemporary Identities: Unlimited Voices in East Asia and the West (Routledge 2013). Currently (2015–2020) he is on the board of editors of the journal Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie (ZGMTH).

Utz has been director of the research project A Context-Sensitive Theory of Post-tonal Sound Organization(CT∙PSO) (2012–2014) and is now director of the research project Performing, Experiencing and Theorizing Augmented Listening [PETAL] (2017–2020; http://petal.kug.ac.at) (both projects funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF). In 2017 he received the Best Paper Award of the Austrian Society for Musicology for his open access publication Multivalent Form in Gustav Mahlerʼs Lied von der Erde from the Perspective of Its Performance History (http://www.musau.org/parts/neue-article-page/view/37).

As a composer, Utz has been invited to many important European seminars of new music (Session du composition Royaumont/F 1998, Stage d’informatique musicale IRCAM/Paris 1999, 14th international composition seminar in Boswil/CH 2001, composition seminar Ictus Ensemble Bruxelles 2002) and has received numerous grants and awards. In early phases of his artistic development, Utz explored concepts spanning the fields of music and theatre, composition and improvisation, instrumental and electronic music. From 1998 to 2006 intercultural collaborations and concepts have been at the centre of Utz’ compositional activities; they are documented on his CDs Site (Composers’ Art Label 2002) and transformed (Spektral Records 2008). More recently, Utzʼs work stele (2011) after texts from the Gilgamesh epic and by Liao Yiwu was premiered by Schola Heidelberg and ensemble aisthesis.

https://kug.academia.edu/ChristianUtz
http://www.christianutz.net