ENCORE MET WITH MUSIC ALUMNUS AWARD-WINNINGDAI FUJIKURA TO ASK ABOUT HIS TIME WITH US AND
THE WAY THAT HE WORKS‘I really wanted to be a composer, meaning that, even with how
poor I would be, I wanted to write music and to live somehow.
When I have to pay British Gas, especially in the winter months,l think – there goes the first few minutes of my string quartet!’

Born in Japan in 1977, Dai moved to UK when he was 15 and later
studied with Daryl Runswick at Trinity College of Music, now Trinity
Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. Since graduating he has
won many awards, including the Royal Philharmonic Composition
Prize in 2007. His work has been performed around the globe bysome of the world’s top orchestra’s and he is being honoured thisyear with a Portrait Concert in Suntory Hall, Japan. Encore caught up
with him as his album, Secret Forest, is released as part of the NMC
Debut Disc series.
What is your process? How do you start?
I have quite a lot of ideas, some of them developed from the time that
I attended Trinity, of the kind of pieces I would write. Sometimes thesuitable project or opportunity hasn’t arisen to turn those ideas intoreality. I have those ideas filed in my mind and when a certain project
comes up I think about whether I could marry any of those ideas to thatparticular project. Sometimes I don’t use any of the ideas which I have
– and that doesn’t matter at all – as sometimes a project generates anidea that I’d never considered.
Sometimes when I start composing I think of a system. For example
when writing an orchestral work I often just want to go for big chords,
expanding them from one chord to the next, until each chord fragments
becoming more abstract – even rhythmic.
When working like that I don’t want to write organically, I just want
to write something where one rule or method works throughout
contrasting sections.

DAI FUJIKURA

Cuts to funding in the arts have been huge. What do you think theeffect has been on the cultural landscape?

In the composition department the final exam criteria was that you had
to produce 30 minutes of music, arrange the performers and performin front of the examiner. I wrote a 30 minute chamber opera which
needed 20 players. I wanted proper staging and so on.
I asked that if I arrange a staging of a double bill rather than a concert,could they allow this for the exam? The examiners agreed, so somefriends and I borrowed money (as we didn’t have any) to rent Hoxton
Hall. One thing I didn’t realise was that we had to rent instruments.
I asked Jeffrey Joseph if I could borrow all the instruments in Trinity
over Easter Sunday and Monday. We were quite good friends and heagreed as long as they were back by Tuesday morning, ‘I’ll act as if I
don’t know’! Linda Hirst said to me as long as all the singers are Trinity
students, the college will cover the hire costs of the other piece ofmusic. We were already borrowing money for the cost of the hall, so
we needed to sell tickets in order to break even. We went everywhere
to sell tickets. The best part is that I told my box office people that
there were no complimentary tickets, not even for my examiners! So
all three examiners had to pay – they told me they never had to pay toexamine before!
What advice would you give to those who want to make a career incomposition?
The more music you hear the better - you have no excuse not toengage with as much music as possible in one of the most famous
cities in the world, with the most famous orchestras and artists in theworld regularly visiting. You shouldn’t think of your musical activity as
only taking place in one spot of the world – at college. You don’t haveto change what you like, but you should seek out new experiences.
Don’t change your music, but try to find the friends of your music.

There’s nothing more to say than that it’s awful, because when you
are cutting the culture of the future, you are cutting a contribution tofuture beauty. I’m not only talking about “high-culture” but everyday
life. Today we see mass produced design influenced from the high end
work of the 50s, 60s and 70s. It has been like this for centuries. If you
stop doing this, then not just ‘culture’ would suffer, but everyday life
would suffer.
I have a corner of a room, with a desk, a computer and piano
connected to computer. When you write music you are in your world, it
is exactly that, a solitary place. It could be of course lonely, but at thesame time it doesn’t matter how large your room or studio because it
could’ve been on the tube, or in the rush-hour. You are out there.
Photo ©Tsutomu Ishiai

Photo ©Ai Ueda

What are your memories of Trinity?
I met my wife at Trinity at Mandeville Place. It was just so relaxedand free. We could just knock on the office door of important faculty
members and see them, even the principal. We rarely had to makeappointments. I can tell you proudly that I think I got the most out
Trinity! Here is an example:

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