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Work of the Week – Noriko Koide: Whale
- By Christopher Peter
- 23 Nov 2025
Noriko Koide's Whale for orchestra and children. A sonic expedition into the ocean. World Premiere at Nagoya, Nov 24, 2025.
Tagged with 'Japan'
WORK OF THE WEEK – TORU TAKEMITSU: NOSTALGHIA
- 5 Sep 2022
Water and mist: Nostalgia by Toru Takemitsu combines themes of loss of home and longing with these blurred images of nature. The violin concerto will be staged for the first time in Slovakia on the 8th of September under the musical direction of Daniel Raiskin. Performed by the Slovenská Filharmónia with violinist Daishin Kashimoto, this concert is in collaboration with the Japanese embassy.
Work of the Week – Akiko Yamane: Arcade
- 24 Aug 2020
On 26 August, Arcade, a new 20-minute orchestral work by Akiko Yamane will receive its world premiere at Suntory Hall, Tokyo. The concert, which is part of the 2020 Suntory Summer Festival will be given by the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Yoichi Sugiyama.
Yamane describes Arcade as drawing on the idea of drone music that programmatically expresses a consumerist society where the needs and desires of the people are seemingly under control. Below the surface, however, their internal desires and contradictions become apparent. Arcade has been commissioned by the Suntory Arts Foundation.
Photos: Adobe Stock / topntp, Coco
Yamane describes Arcade as drawing on the idea of drone music that programmatically expresses a consumerist society where the needs and desires of the people are seemingly under control. Below the surface, however, their internal desires and contradictions become apparent. Arcade has been commissioned by the Suntory Arts Foundation.
Akiko Yamane – Arcade: State of uncertainty within a fragile society
I seek to depict this idea with a quality of sound that a person can feel on their skin. The sound fluctuates according to subtle changes within the listener’s body, or in accordance with a particular place or space and so on. In this piece, I stop and turn my attention to the various layers of sound and focus on their essence. Akiko Yamane
Photos: Adobe Stock / topntp, Coco
World Premiere of Toshio Hosokawa "Texture" at the Digital Concert Hall by Berlin Philharmonic
- 5 Jun 2020
Toshio Hosokawa’s new piece, Texture for octet will be premiered at the Digital Concert Hall by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra on June 6th. The first performer is the Philharmonic Octet Berlin.
Texture was co-commissioned by the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation and the Japan Arts Corporation for the Philharmonic Octet Berlin, and is dedicated to the ensemble. The instrumentation of octet is the same as Octet D803 by Franz Schubert which is the ensemble’s specialty; clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin 2, viola, violoncello and double bass.
The instrumentation is divided into the following 2 groups; a group consisting of a string quartet and another consisting of clarinet, bassoon, horn and double bass. Each group plays melodies with a lively calligraphy-like shape, an unforced linear of the Eastern brushstrokes which is one of the characteristics of Hosokawa’s music. In this piece, like the Yin and Yang of the East, just as polar opposite elements, such as man and woman, high and low, strength and weakness, light and dark coexist and complete each other - become tied together without defeating the other, whilst gradually shaping the sound of the universe.
Toshio Hosokawa
Texture (2020)
for octet
June 6, 2020, 19:00 Philharmonie Berlin (Berlin, Germany)
June 7, 2020, 13:00 Philharmonie Berlin (Berlin, Germany) Broadcast from Digital Concert Hall by Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Philharmonic Octet Berlin (Wenzel Fuchs [clarinet], Mor Biron [bassoon], Stefan Dohr [horn], Daishin Kashimoto, Romano Tommasini [violin], Amihai Grosz [viola], Christoph Igelbrink [cello], Esko Laine [double bass])
Texture was co-commissioned by the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation and the Japan Arts Corporation for the Philharmonic Octet Berlin, and is dedicated to the ensemble. The instrumentation of octet is the same as Octet D803 by Franz Schubert which is the ensemble’s specialty; clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin 2, viola, violoncello and double bass.
The instrumentation is divided into the following 2 groups; a group consisting of a string quartet and another consisting of clarinet, bassoon, horn and double bass. Each group plays melodies with a lively calligraphy-like shape, an unforced linear of the Eastern brushstrokes which is one of the characteristics of Hosokawa’s music. In this piece, like the Yin and Yang of the East, just as polar opposite elements, such as man and woman, high and low, strength and weakness, light and dark coexist and complete each other - become tied together without defeating the other, whilst gradually shaping the sound of the universe.
Toshio Hosokawa
Texture (2020)
for octet
World Premiere
June 6, 2020, 19:00 Philharmonie Berlin (Berlin, Germany)
June 7, 2020, 13:00 Philharmonie Berlin (Berlin, Germany) Broadcast from Digital Concert Hall by Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Philharmonic Octet Berlin (Wenzel Fuchs [clarinet], Mor Biron [bassoon], Stefan Dohr [horn], Daishin Kashimoto, Romano Tommasini [violin], Amihai Grosz [viola], Christoph Igelbrink [cello], Esko Laine [double bass])
Work of the Week – Toshio Hosokawa: Meditation to the victims of Tsunami (3.11)
- 6 Apr 2020
+++ After the following story was published, we learned that the concert and live-streaming had to be cancelled as well. +++
On 11 April, the NHK Symphony Orchestra will perform Toshio Hosokawa’s Meditation to the victims of Tsunami (3.11) as part of a livestream concert conducted by Masaru Kumakura. The concert has been organised to replace the orchestra’s scheduled public performance in response to ongoing restrictions of COVID-19.
Born in Hiroshima following World War II, Hosokawa has composed a number of works (including Memory of the Sea and Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima) that express a deeply personal connection to those who have found themselves victims to disasters – both present and historical. Remarking that the Tohoku Earthquake on 11 March 2011 gave him pause to contemplate more deeply what it is ‘to live’, Hosokawa draws listeners’ attention to the strength of people in the face of the unimaginable.
In recent works, Meditation to the victims of Tsunami (3.11), a mourning for the victims of Tsunami, Klage, in which a mother could heal her deep sorrow by singing, and Nach dem Sturm depicting a flower that experienced storm gradually regaining the world of light, Hosokawa expressed fear of primitive power and the terror of nature, and the anger against irrationality that we are threatened by nuclear power we ourselves created. His work coexists with each of these, finding space between them to illuminate the resilience of humanity.
On 11 April, the NHK Symphony Orchestra will perform Toshio Hosokawa’s Meditation to the victims of Tsunami (3.11) as part of a livestream concert conducted by Masaru Kumakura. The concert has been organised to replace the orchestra’s scheduled public performance in response to ongoing restrictions of COVID-19.
Born in Hiroshima following World War II, Hosokawa has composed a number of works (including Memory of the Sea and Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima) that express a deeply personal connection to those who have found themselves victims to disasters – both present and historical. Remarking that the Tohoku Earthquake on 11 March 2011 gave him pause to contemplate more deeply what it is ‘to live’, Hosokawa draws listeners’ attention to the strength of people in the face of the unimaginable.
In recent works, Meditation to the victims of Tsunami (3.11), a mourning for the victims of Tsunami, Klage, in which a mother could heal her deep sorrow by singing, and Nach dem Sturm depicting a flower that experienced storm gradually regaining the world of light, Hosokawa expressed fear of primitive power and the terror of nature, and the anger against irrationality that we are threatened by nuclear power we ourselves created. His work coexists with each of these, finding space between them to illuminate the resilience of humanity.
My musical idea is to find harmony between nature and humans. Therefore, the tsunami of 2011 was a great shock to me. Nature just isn’t only nice and beautiful, it can also be cruel sometimes. We Japanese seem to have lost our respect for nature. - Toshio Hosokawa
