Program Notes (Shiomi Mieko)

program A “Performing Words and Concepts”

program B “Piano × Performance”

performers: Uematsu Takuma, Oi Takuya, Kaminaka Asami, Nakamura Keisuke, Hashizume Kosuke, Hashimoto Reiko, Morimoto Yuri, Yamane Akiko

performers: Uematsu Takuma, Oi Takuya, Kaminaka Asami, Nakamura Keisuke, Hashizume Kosuke, Hashimoto Reiko, Morimoto Yuri, Yamane Akiko

1. "And a Nightingale Has Flown - Play Catch withWords" 1992/2020

4. "Azalea and a Shadow" 1966/2022
Two performers sit on swivel chairs placed at a distance

1. "Albatross" 2021/2022
This piece consists of a small composition, written in

6. "Anagram" 2022
Anagrams are language games where the letters of aThis is a work that treats words as objects. Twofrom each other. One begins by swiveling their chair and2021 commission by the pianist Oi Hiroaki, and anword are rearranged to form a different word. I composed

performers stand at a distance and throw words at eachpronouncing a pair of words with a questioning intonation.

accompanying performance.

this piece out of curiosity about what would happen if thisother, as if playing catch, reading out what the other has

The other person responds by combining the two words inthrown at them. Each performer throws sentence fragments

another way and pronouncing them in an affirmative tone.

ranging, single-note phrase played while using theof texts about completely different subjects, and yet

They continue their exchange with different word pairs.

sostenuto pedal of the piano. When this pedal is pressedcharacteristic phrases which serve as the work’s theme. Next,

sometimes the meanings will match and harmonize.

When they hear music played by other performers, they get

immediately after a chord was played, only the notes used inthey are arranged and played in different orders. Theup and change seats. Then, they continue the samethe chord remain open strings. Adding other, harmonious

important point of this process is whether these connections

the moment when they appear to be caught, otherquestion-and-answer pattern with “Momentary Movement

notes by pressing hard on the piano keys then creates asound natural and musically fresh. Then the first variation

performers play matching sounds.

and Obbligato”, interrupting music, then “Delphinium andresonating, rich sound. As the resonances sound even

begins, where the eight parts of the theme are expanded

The prototype of this work was performed at Xebec in Kobe

Underwater Volcano”.

clearer when stepping on the damper pedal, I made use of

into longer phrases before being rearranged. At this point,

this effect. The work also features the appearance of unusual

narration and percussion start playing alternately— as theparticipants who surround the piano.

piano phrases grow in length, their arrangement becomes

While the words seem to move through the air, and inin 1992, using different texts and relying on loudspeakers tocreate the sonic image of traveling words.

In this phonetic piece two performers elaborate on how
to combine two words and pronounce them in various

The most distinctive part of this piece is the wide-rhythms, intonations and expressions.
2. "Poem on a Circuit" 1966/2022
Standing in a circle, eight performers act as humandevices equipped with words from different fields. Each ofThis is a parody of In Memoriam to Adriano Olivetti byIt begins with the introduction of eight short,difficult to recognize, but the addition of a distinct,
2. "Falling Event for a Pianist" 2022

5. "In Memoriam to G. Maciunas" 2019supertemporal structure were realized using sound alone.

overlapping sound such as short words or percussion should

A narrator sitting on top of a stepladder reads out

make it easier to discern the musical structure. At points

excerpts from the record of Spatial Poem No. 3 “Falling

specified in the piano score, the percussion plays shortthem holds a spotlight in their hands. The leader begins by

the late George Maciunas, commissioned by the English

Event” from 1966. Once an excerpt has been read out, thephrases in four different timbre. The narration features theusing their light to illuminate the face of another performer,

group newCELF in 2019. A conductor follows the rhythm ofperformer lets the card fall onto the floor, at which moment

following phrases: “1) From the Ivory Coast, 2) on the rising

who then announces one of the built-in words and directs

a metronome to give cues to six performers to pronounce or

the pianist plays a short phrase. As a spatial counterpoint,

air current, 3) chamomile, please, 4) by the water fountain.”the light onto another performer’s face. The illuminatedsing words beginning with the letters F, L, U, X, U or S. As

whenever a specific record is read out, a paper airplane

person then says one of the words and repeats the process

the performance proceeds, they gradually replace the words

folded from paper printed with the record is thrown from thelonger, and both percussion and narration grow to include

in the same manner. The words form connections, and whenwith sounds, using simple instruments held in their hands.

balcony.

eight different phrases. Although it is possible to continue

two people are illuminated in quick succession, the words

Eventually the conductor begins to give his cues

In the second variation, the piano phrases become even

I have composed new piano parts based on thesethis pattern endlessly, this is where I stopped for this piece.

within the ring are layered in two or three voices. Each

without adhering to the beat of the metronome, resulting inrecords to create a bridge between this piece and theThe selection of the individual percussion sounds is left toperformer is free to choose how to pronounce the words,chaos.

concurrent exhibition of Falling Event in the Contemporary

percussionist Kaminaka Asami.

and each performer can sit down and turn off the light at any
moment, for two pauses of up to 20 seconds.

While Maciunas’ In Memoriam to Adriano Olivetti
follows a rigid and unchanging structure, this piece allows

Art section of the Aichi Triennale 2022 on the 10th floor of
the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art.

for different performances to unfold in each section.
3. "Time Parallel" 1966/2022
Each performer acts according to their own individual
timeframe.
One performer plays parts of Bach’s Partitia 1; anotherfeaturing anagrams. I had hoped to write music with this
3. “About Past Civilizations” 2019/2022

6. "Direction Event" 2012/2022
An earlier version of this work was written for“Intermedia/Transmedia” held at the Museum ofMy Fluxus friend, the late Jean Dupuy, was a master ofanagrams. In the 1990s he used to sent me many poems
method someday.

4. “Clusters and Afterglow” 2022
5. “Glacier and Quetzal” 2019/2022

7. "A Confined Sonata" 2014

The three pieces are to be performed as a series. For

The premiere of this piece was at “Fluxus in Japan2014” at the Museum of Contemporary Tokyo in 2014.

performer announces the time in six different locations

Contemporary Art Tokyo in 2012. In it, each performer keeps

piece 3, six performers approach the piano while reading

whenever the music fades; one performer rings a bell eachperforming while facing a single direction that was decided

out texts about different extinct civilizations in increasingly

minute; one performer breathes air into water using a tube;

beforehand.

louder voices. When their volume appears to have reached(Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, the First Movement of Op.

Shortly after a pianist starts playing a sonata

another performer counts his breaths out loud; anotherIn this version, the eight performers carry out different

its peak, the pianist interrupts them with a descending

27, No. 2), its sounds will be covered by noises generated

performer throws ping-pong balls onto the floor every few

actions according to the following announcements: “towardglissando. Then, in piece 4, the pianist plays phrases withinside the piano, and after a while the entire performancebreaths; another performer blows into a harmonica every

ten minutes from now”, “toward the final page of thisvarious tone clusters. Each phrase is accompanied by a noise

itself will be visually covered with white net. This piece is

few breaths; one performer swings a pendulum and hits thebook”, “toward the lowest note of this instrument”, “towardor sound from a percussion instrument, like an echo, until

meant to be played as an encore.

inside of a piano according to its swings.

longer phrases”, “toward high-speed rotation”, “toward

the sound eventually becomes a clear, bell-like tone. Then in

I am sometimes asked why I choose Beethoven when

Prestissimo”, “toward growth and expansion”, and “toward

piece 5, texts about glacier and quetzal are alternately sangselecting established music to be destroyed in my works.

the stairs.”

in recitativo by baritone and narrated by a female performer,

This choice has neither to do with my liking or disliking his

accompanied by a gentle series of chords played on themusic, nor with any kind of ideology. The reason is thatpiano.

Beethoven’s music is very resilient against disturbances by

What will emerge in this simple time and spacecomposed of these unrelated actions?

Direction Event was originally performed in 1965 as mywork Spatial Poem No. 2, which regarded the earth as its
stage. In 2018, I turned the same concept of directions into
an artwork that was installed at WhiteBox in New York. As
such, Direction Event functions as an example of transmedia
art, where a particular concept is transformed into various
forms and media.

The prototypes of pieces 3 and 5 premiered at anoises, interruptions or violent, loud sounds. I choose hisconcert held at Kyoto City University of Arts in 2019.

music because it still sounds laid-back, sturdy, warm andfriendly even when completely drowned in noise—in short,because his music is worth being destroyed.