Happy New Year 2012!

I have planned to post more "Beijing" stories and pictures, but again, my life as a mom and other things got in my way :)  My family is visiting Boston for the New Years visiting family friends, so finally I have time to post some old pictures from October here. The first one is with the inventor of FM synthesis, John Chowning in Beijing, who was the featured guest composer at MusicaAcoustica Festival 2012 in Beijing which we were invited.  It was French composer/organizer Benoit Granier who found me and contacted me to go to Beijing for the first time to perform and give lectures at the Beijing Central Conservatory.

While in Beijing I met very nice people, including an American journalist named James Tiscione, who wrote a feature article of me in Global Times, an English paper in Beijing. James, who is originally from Yonkers (I think he said), has lived in China for several years now and impressively speaks Chinese fluently.  He took me around to Hutongs in Beijing, and we had a great time walking around.  Here he is treating me to a sour apple candy which was yummy! Maybe not so yummy (?) since I didn't taste it, but here are some interesting culture merger :)   "Tea Coffee" and "Mojito Milk Shake"!

My impression of Beijing was that there were so many cars which maybe driven by people who were on bicycles until recently, so it is pretty chaotic on the streets and you have to really watch out for yourself :)  The country made me think of what it must have been like in the old "wild-wild West" in California, when everyone went for new opportunities.  My father, who was born in former Manchuria as a son of Japanese pediatrician pre WWII, and have been invited to China many times as a specialist of solar energy, said that "In China, everything happens everywhere, all the time!" and I think that's pretty much correct :)

2011 was a very fruitful year for me in terms of work, and I have several projects that I am currently working on.  The very immediate project is for Maestro Pierre-Yves Artaud, the great "Dean" of France's flute society.  Prof. Artaud teaches at the Conservatoire in Paris, and the founder of Orchestre de Flûte Français.  This is a piece for solo flute (Artaud), violin (me) and interactive computer using IRCAM's latest software OMAX, and my bowing motion sensor "Augmented Violin" also developed at IRCAM, and the flute ensemble. 

My children, especially my daughter is distraught that there is NO SNOW anywhere this year :)  Her Christmas present wish included "Let it snow, let it snow..."  We shall see.... :)

China mega-post Part-I

I was in Beijing from October 23-31.  Finally now I'm little more relaxed, I get to post some pictures and stories from there.   My October was really hectic for me; As I wrote in my previous post, I had two premieres within a week: Eigenspace, my new interactive graphic collaboration, I-Quadrifoglio, my first string quartet premiere with the Cassatt String Quartet.  Then I prepared a new composition written for me by French composer Marc Battier for violin and electronics entitled Double Suns, to be premiered at the Musicacoustica Festival held at Beijing Central Conservatory of Music.  I had to learn Marc's piece within a week, since it was just finished :) which suited me as I had absolutely no time before the I-Quadrifoglio premiere!

On October 22, I left for Beijing from Newark, a 9-day trip leaving my two children with my husband.  The day I was leaving, my daughter who is physically very fit and hardly ever sick, decided to come down with high fever.  She usually goes down very deep like this, but comes out of in within a day, which fortunately she did according to my husband and she didn't miss any school.  Nonetheless, it was a little unnerving to leave them in this state...  The flight to Beijing was full, with the longest line for the first class and business class that I have ever seen.  It looked almost as long as the economy line which I was in.  The flight plan showed that we were flying straight up from New York through Canada, over the north pole, and down through Siberia to China.  It was the first time I've done that.

As we were landing I took some pictures from the plane: a lot of blue and red roofs of factories (I assume) but these two colors symbolize China.  Here I come!   Then I was picked up along with a group from Lyon, GRAME.  Here are composer/architect Pierre Jaffrennou, formidable percussionist living in Lyon Yi-Ping Yang, and composer Max Bruckert also from Lyon, waiting for the car at the airport.  Not just because of these people from Lyon, but with others from France and Chinese professors who are Francophone, I think I spoke more French than English in China throughout my stay.
From the airport, as we approached central Beijing, you are struck with avenues after avenues with gigantic new architecture. Just imagine twice the size of New York's Time Warner building, and that is standing next to each other on both sides for miles and miles, by streets twice the size of Park Avenue. That's Beijing!

After hurriedly checked into the hotel, I was brought straight to the rehearsal to meet Marc Battier at the Beijing Central Conservatory.  The new piece he wrote for me, Double Suns, was to be premiered the next evening at the Opening Concert of the Musicaoucstica Festival.  The Opening Concert was entitled Voyage Apollonian, adopting my composition for interactive graphics I was performing in the concert (graphics by Ken Perlin, NYU).    The next morning I staggered downstairs of my 3-star business hotel restaurant for breakfast: my first Chinese food buffet, which I ate too much and lasted for two-meals worth :)

Regrouping again :)

Long hiatus since July.  I just had a very busy fall season, constantly feeling like a hamster in a wheel :)  Now I am finally having to sleep normally, regrouping, think and listen again, without constant crises and pressure one after another.  It is a VERY welcome and much needed state of mind :)

I realize my last post was July, when I came back from Japan.   The editor of STRINGS magazine, Greg Olwell, read my previous post about my visit to Japan, especially concerning teaching and meeting with Japanese students in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and asked me to contribute to the STRINGS magazine blog, which they called "Music as Medicine".

In the fall, I had two big new works premieres.   One is a commission from Harvestworks, an interactive audio video work with Japanese movie director and media artist, Tomoyuki Kato.  I met him through his brother, Prof. Kazuhiko Kato, a renown computer science professor at Tsukuba University in Japan.  He came to my lecture in July there, and over the internet, he introduced me to his brother.  Mr. Tomoyuki Kato is widely known for his stunning visuals and designs expos, industrial presentations, and theme parks.  My new work is called Eigenspace, using work that I did this summer with Nicolas Rasamimanana at IRCAM, using "eigenvalue" of the bowing movements.  It is related to kind of inertia of the movements my bowing and musical expression generate.  It is a new mode of interaction for me, which I am now exploring intensively. Mr. Kato also uploaded his "director's cut" version on YouTube; it shows a bit of rehearsal images of the project. Eigenspace was premiered at Roulette in Brooklyn, and we are planning on expanding it to an evening-long event in the future.

Another big project for me this fall was a commission from the Cassatt String Quartet (through the generous support of the Fromm Foundation Award), "I-Quadrifoglio" for string quartet and interactive computer.  The picture here is the Cassatt Quartet rehearsing "I-Quadrifoglio".  I so wished that I had chronicled my compositional process and progress.  This is my first composition in recent years, which I was not involved as a performer myself; I had to notate my musical intentions very clearly, which I have become complacent with, since I have been writing for myself most of the time.  For the four string players of Cassatt, I was conceited that I, a violinist myself, know what I wrote and what I mean.  It was only when I was confronted with all kinds of musical questions regarding articulations and expressions (for example "what do you mean by an accent with a dot, is this stronger or shorter than the... " etc) I realized how much I didn't know.  This was a going-back-to-school experience for me, which I am very grateful to have the most patient and generous teachers as the Cassatt Quartet!  The premiere was at the Symphony Space, and there was a pre-concert cocktail/interview along with other composers on the program, venerable Judith Shatin and Sebastian Currier, both master composers.  Although I felt a little intimidated :)  I very much enjoyed that it was the very first time I could actually enjoy a glass of wine just before my performance, since I'm NOT playing! In this picture I'm setting their computer up just before the performance.  It is a totally hands-free, no click-track or foot-pedal used, interactive composition, which fortunately didn't fail at the performance!  I'm so humbled that this is my first string quartet ever, and I was fortunate enough to be given this opportunity.

A week after the "I-Quadrifoglio" premiere, I left for Beijing, China for the first time, to participate in Musicacoustica Festival, invited by French composer and organizer of TIMI Modern Music Ensemble's director, Benoit Granier.  I returned on October 31st, followed by family obligations and some grant proposal deadlines.  Now that I have a bit of breathing time, I am planning a "Beijing mega-post" and photos in the coming few days :)  Or so I promise!

Back in Paris, encore visit to IRCAM

After Tokyo, I briefly returned to New York to pick up my kids, and arrived in Paris this weekend.  I'm visiting IRCAM again, following up with our work together and discuss new developments.   Frédéric Bevilacqua, the head of the Real Time Musical Interaction Team and I, met last Monday in New York, the day after we both arrived from our  original home countries: Fred from Lausanne, me from Tokyo.  Fred invited me for "VIP only" MOMA opening for "Talk to me" exhibition, where IRCAM's "MO", Modular Musical Objects, which include my bowing motion sensor "mini-MO" (the smallest and the latest model) won the first prize in a competition and is now displayed there.   We were both spectacularly jetlagged that we were wide wake :)

Then Frédéric went on to visit his old school UC Irvine (Fred has PhD in Biomedical Optics!) giving lectures, and returned to Paris today, joined us for lunch practically right off the airplane.  What a guy! :)  Then he went to an appointment at IRCAM...  I on the other hand, herded my kids through JFK where our Air France flight was about 2+1/2 hrs late, but somehow pulled through since my kids slept through the flight.  I admittedly was quite tired, since my jet-lag from Tokyo/NYC was never cured :) decided to enjoy Air France's free Champagne and free red wine, and happily went to sleep.  Only a few hours later, woke up feeling so sick!   Bad decision, and my French husband scolded me later "Don't mix Champagne and red wine... if you have Champagne, drink only Champagne all the way!"  Oh well I did learn my lesson LOL!  All is well, and my children are with their French grandparents who very kindly are keeping them so I could work at IRCAM staying in Paris, and of course, for their second summer of complete "French immersion".  And my brother-in-law kindly let me stay in his apartment near Republique where his family is away in Madagascar.   I can walk to IRCAM from this quiet part of town.  Here are my poor kids, waiting while I was looking for our luggage at CDG (there was Air France strike, and everything like baggage collection took a very Loooong time :)

Here is Nicolas and I, Nicolas Rasamimanana, my formidable collaborator at IRCAM who now runs his own NPO, Phonotonic, a 'spin off' of IRCAM pursuing individual projects. He said he might incorporate by the end of the year, to go "for-profit"!  :)

Nicolas is a violinist also, and such a wonderful mathematician and scientist, that when we are together, what I do is to start saying something, and he goes, "Yes, that's right..." or "That's something I wanted to do anyway..."  Although he speaks fantastic English, we really don't have to say much, and we could communicate with motions, music, or mime :)  I count my blessings being able to work with him.  I discuss what I need from the sensor data, and he starts talking to himself programming, and I just listen to his murmuring like music :)  Then we try, then he programs, repeat....  In short half a day, we got already so much done.  We also tried our scenarios for Fukusuke Nakamura, Kabuki actor wearing the sensor while he dances, by looking at the movies and data I made in Tokyo two weeks ago.  (See the last post)

And of course, I'm in Paris, so my first lunch out with Nicolas was Salade de Gésiers.... I was dreaming about this :)  Nicolas had crêpe, and we both had Cidre... :)

My monumental day with Fukusuke Nakamura (中村福助）

I have been visiting Japan almost for the week, giving lectures and performances here in Tokyo.  I decided to do this, leaving behind my family in NYC, after hearing that young Japanese artists and students are feeling rather depressed and helpless in the aftermath of the nuclear disaster in Fukushima.  I wanted to at least give some hope and joy of being creative in a unique way, and by all accounts, from the letters I received from enthusiastic students at my lectures saying "so encouraging, so much fun, astonishing, flabbergasted" (!)   I am so happy that I came back.

A few years ago, I had an earth-shattering, shocking experience seeing the extraordinary performance by one of the foremost Kabuki actors of our time, Fukusuke Nakamura, (Japanese here) who gave an avant-garde performance dancing with a pianist playing Chopin  (see  "Where am I from?").  Yesterday, I had one of the most inspiring meeting with this extraordinary artist.  I visited him in the backstage of Shinbashi Performance Theater (新橋演舞場), in between his Kabuki performances.  I was introduced to him by Today's top Shamisen virtuoso Mojibe Tokiwazu 5th, the head of the House of Tokiwazu（常磐津文字兵衛５世）whom I collaborated a few years ago when I curated Music from Japan Festival in New York. Mojibe is the most astonishing artist; no one can be more traditional, yet he does completely outrageously adventurous activities.  (see his Shamisen Rock video!) I can't say how much I respect his open-mindedness; we worked together on interactive computer with Shamisen and Violin.

Fukusuke, a Japanese celebrity, a theater actor as well as a movie star, is one of the foremost Japanese Kabuki actor in the female role (Onna-kata 女形) recognized over the world.  I was quite star-struck at first, but I immediately realized he is a true artist completely free of pretension, who is tremendously open-minded and genuinely interested in all forms of creativity.  He was wonderful to speak with, about all issues regarding the very essence to performance.  We are in very different fields, but I think we connected instantly at the artistic level.  We spoke about the 'flow' of performance, 'preparations' gestures, what is the 'quality' of movement, and how one must remain connected to the tradition, as well as being experimental.  I wished that I recorded everything he talked about; Fukusuke comes from a long line of the prestigious House of Nakamura, the family who has been Kabuki actors since the 1700s.  He spoke about many of his legendary relatives and how they worked, their discipline and what he learned from them; many of his relatives were given the titles of Living National Treasures by the Japanese government.

The picture is Fukusuke wearing one of the motion sensors I'm working with, developed at IRCAM in Paris.   I took Fukusuke's hand gesture data, and let him try out some interactive computer music with his hand.   I was very happy that he seemed genuinely interested in collaborating together, and he wrote so in his official blog (in Japanese) , and more pictures here too !!!  

Off topic: obsessions :)

This post is not related anywhere near Subharmonics, but I think I have an addictive personality.  From childhood my mother used to complain that I would get into one thing and ONLY one thing, like food, book, toy etc. going through phases.   I still haven't recovered from this 'sickness' which continues to my adulthood.  Maybe because of this obsessive personality, I get to do such esoteric thing like Subharmonics LOL!

To take an example, I watch same movies over and over and over again, actually ONE SCENE of a movie over and over again.  There is this movie called "Evil Under the Sun", an all-star cast Agatha Christie movie starring Peter Ustinov.  In this 1982 movie, English/French actress Jane Birkin has a scene towards the end where she dramatically changes her demeanor and especially clothing, making a spectacular entrance.  I am so obsessed with this scene, with the accompanying march-like music, I believe by Cole Porter arranged by John Lanchbery.  Peter Ustinov tapping his hand and his feet with the tune, and the tempo slows down in crescendo changing into more jazzy music, and Jane Birkin's character descends the spiral staircase while everyone watches her open-mouthed in awe. (if you have netflix, it's about 1hr 48 min)

I think what I'm obsessed with is the TEMPO change.  It's the effect of this music and the scene that are so perfect together.  I'm not giving away the plot since this is a mystery, but for some reason, I can watch this scene, over and over again :)   I'm curious, what are other people's silver-screen obsessions?

July 4th :) and "I-Quadrifoglio"

To my complete surprise, in today's New York Times there is an yearly ad placed by the Carnegie Corporation entitled "100 immigrants: Pride of America", which I am included as one of them.  A friend alerted me on my Facebook page. (I'm right next to the word "America" on the right side, middle of the page)

It is such an honor, and I am so grateful to the Vilcek Foundation whose founder, Jan Vilcek himself is listed right next to me as well in this page.  It was the Vilceks, who sponsored and presented my solo recital in May, recognizing my work as an immigrant artist.

In the meantime on earth :)  I went shopping with my daughter this morning for all-American (or trying to be) July 4th dinner, which I imagine consists of hamburgers (although we can't barbeque on the upper west side NYC apartment) corn on cobs etc.  I haven't gotten beer which is a huge oversight.  (but we got wine)

AND in the meantime I'm very busy preparing for visiting the Cassatt String Quartet tomorrow morning to do some basic soundcheck for my new commissioned work "I-Quadrifoglio" for string quartet and interactive computer, which will premiere in October in NYC.  It would be absolutely my first composition, which I will NOT be performing myself!   Although the first violinist, Muneko Otani and I studied with the same teacher and we have been a long-time friend.  I know her violin playing and how she would phrase music.  As for the title, it was very simple; Muneko emailed me one day almost in panic "I need the title!!" since they were doing a presentation at an Apple Store in Manhattan.  Everything Apple starts with "I", and I happened to be browsing at hybrid cars (!) one of which was Alfa-Romeo.  Quartet /4-leaf clover + Interactive = I-Quadrifoglio !!!    A lot of times, title of my pieces actually start to take over my imagination and this one probably will :)  And not to worry, for the premiere, I will have more 'legitimate' program notes and the origin of this title :):)

It is very VERY interesting for me to be working on this project, as processing a string quartet is quite monumental compared to processing just one violin as I usually do.   It has already been done by many composers, but I guess what would be quite unique about mine is, that I am trying to make this work completely "hands-free", that is, using absolutely no computer operator on or off stage, but with absolutely no pre-recorded materials, just real-time processing.