 Sukeyasu Shiba |
SUKEYASU SHIBA (composer, gagku performer and Musical Director of Reigakusha) was born in 1935 into the Shiba family, a branch of the Koma clan ofgagaku musicians associated with the temple-shrine complex of Kofuku-ji/Kasuga Taisha in Nara for more than a thousand years. He served as a gagaku performer at the Department of Music of the Imperial Household Agency for 27 years before leaving the post in 1984. While a leading member of the Music Department, he specialized in the fue, the biwa, and bugaku dance. In addition to performing, Mr. Shiba devoted his energies to the revival of ancient Japanese musical forms. He is an important composer and scholar for the reconstruction of lost parts of the gagakurepertory. After retiring from his post at the Imperial Household Agency, he has performed widely on various types of transverse flutes. Mr. Shiba has been invited to numerous international music festivals such as the Festival d’Autumne in Paris, the Lincoln Center Festival in New York, the Tanglewood Festival, the Vienna Modern, and the Ultima Festival in Oslo. Formerly a Professor of Music at the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music, he is currently a guest professor at the Kunitachi Music College. Mr. Shiba serves as the Musical Director of Reigakusha, of which the majority of members are musicians whom he taught during his extensive career. The Ministry of Education of Japan has designated him as a Leading Artist of Traditional Japanese Music and he was honored with the Idemitsu Music Award in 1997. In 2003, Mr. Shiba received the Japan Art Academy Prize as well as the Imperial Award from the same organization. In 2009, he was awarded The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon. | |
 Stephen Pier John Dean, photo |
Stephen Pier has achieved a uniquely rich and varied career as a dancer, teacher, and choreographer. His credits as a performer include many years as a principal dancer with José Limón Company where the New York press hailed him as, “...one of the most gifted dancers on the modern dance scene today.” Stephen went on to become a leading soloist with The Hamburg Ballett performing the title roles in John Neumeier’s “Othello” and “Saint Matthew’s Passion” and creating numerous other major roles during his nine years with the company. As a member of The Royal Danish Ballett for six years, Stephen had the privilege of dancing leading roles in works of Bournonville, Balanchine, and Macmillan as well as collaborating with many of Europe’s finest choreographers. He was also invited to teach both the company and the school of the Royal Danish Ballet and served as ballet master for the company from 1992-1996. He has taught on the faculty of The Alvin Ailey School, the Martha Graham Center, Regional Dance America, New York International Ballet Competition and for many notable companies in Europe, America and Asia including The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Atlanta Ballet, Bat Dor, Introdans , and the New National Theater, Tokyo. He has been on the faculty of The Juilliard School since 1996. In 2004 Stephen began PierGroupDance to explore and collaborate with dancers and other artists and art forms. He has created over 30 works for the concert stage, opera, theater, and film. His work has been presented by The Hamburg Ballett(Ger.), The Royal Danish Ballet(Denmark), Royal Danish Theater, Royal Danish Opera, Bat Dor (Israel), the New National Theater(Japan) , the Juilliard Dance Ensemble, The Di Capo Opera Company (NYC), Nilas Martins Dance Company, and the Dance on Film Festival at Lincoln Center. He was selected to be part of Jacob’s Pillow Choreographer’s Project in 1998. He co-founded and directed the emerging choreographer’s workshop, “Danses”, at the Royal Danish Ballet 1990-1996 In September 2008 he started a 3-year tenure as Director of Visions and Voices: Altria/ABT Women's Choreography Project at American Ballet Theater. | |
 Hitomi Kaneko |
Hitomi Kaneko (composer) graduated from the composition department of the Toho Gakuen School of Music in 1988, and completed her postgraduate studies in 1994. She went to study in France on a French government scholarship in 1990, where she continued her studies at the Paris Conservatoire. Ms. Kaneko also attended the Summer Music Festivals in Avignon and Darmstadt with scholarships in 1992. She was invited to perform Miyabi in Kyoto, Japan in 1994. Her Rayon Vert was performed by Ensemble Contrechamps at the Contemporary Music Festival, Tokyo, Japan (1996). In 2001, Ms. Kaneko organized a memorial concert dedicated to Gerard Grisely, and premiered his Vortex Temporum I, II, III, as well as her own Le tombeau de Gerard Grisley with the Orchestre Regional de Cannes. In 2003, Hitomi Kaneko joined the faculty of the Toho Gakuen School of Music, where she is currently a full professor. In 2004 she released her CD Spectral Matters on Ffontec, and her published work with Zen-On includes The Layers of Time (2008) for solo violin. more info... | |
 Yasuko Yamaguchi |
Born in 1969 in Nagasaki, Yasuko Yamaguchi attended Tokyo University the Arts, where she studied composition with Akira Kitamura, Hideo Kobayashi and Michio Mamiya. She graduated in 1991, and in 1997 she left Japan to pursue her composition studies under Manfred Trojahn at the Robert-Schumann-Hochschule in Düsseldorf, Germany, where she received her master’s diploma in 2000. Ms. Yamaguchi was selected in 1989 as a winner of the 13th Kanagawa Prefecture Arts Festival Choral Composition Competition, and in 1992 she was among the prizewinners in the eighth All Japan Young New Music Composers Competition. In 2005 she was awarded the young musician's prize of the city of Düsseldorf. She has received numerous commissions from institutions such as the Nordrhein Westfalen Arts Foundation, the Düsseldorf Main Music Hall, the Karl and Lilli Brügmann Foundation, and others. A commission in 1999 for the Autumn Festival of the Old Town Düsseldorf arts festival resulted in the orchestral composition Darumasan ga koronda (“Daruma fell down”). This work was nominated for the tenth Akutagawa Prize in Japan and was performed by the Kyoto Symphony Orchestra, as well as by the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa under the baton of Hiroyuki Iwaki, whose recording of the piece was released on Warner Music Japan. In December 2003 Ms. Yamaguchi’s work for toy pianos, Satou no ame (“Sugar Rain”), was included in the CD entitled The Untempered Piano: New Composition for Toy Piano. Yasuko Yamaguchi's compositions have been performed extensively by such groups as e-mex new music ensemble, Notabu. Ensemble Neue Musik (Düsseldorf), Thurmchen Ensemble (Cologne), 175 East (New Zealand), Het Netherlands Fluitorkest and De Ereprijs (The Netherlands), the New Japan Philharmonic, the Yamagata Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Sinfonietta, and Ensemble SoNoR (Azerbaijan). They have been heard at the 19th Conference and Festival of the Asian Composers League 1998 in Taiwan, the International Gaudeamus Music Week 1999 in The Netherlands, the 14th Niedersachsen Music Days 2000 in Hanover, Germany, the seventh International Youth Music Forum 2001 in the Ukraine, the Munich Biennale Klangspuren 2008 in Germany, and the ADEvantgarde Festival 2009 in Munich, among others. Ms. Yamaguchi has recently had two concerts of chamber music dedicated solely to her work: in May 2007 in Dortmund, and in September 2008 in Düsseldorf under the sponsorship of the Düsseldorf Main Music Hall. Ms. Yamaguchi resides in Düsseldorf. |
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 Yasuaki Itakura Eric Manas, photo |
Yasuaki Itakura (conductor) graduated from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. He received a scholarship from the French Government to continue his clarinet studies in France with Guy Deplus, and graduated from the Conservatiore Municipal de Paris and Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Paris. Since returning to Japan in 1984, he has performed extensively in recitals, chamber and contemporary music concerts, and concerti with orchestras all over Japan. Itakura has been invited to various international music festivals both as a soloist and conductor including Music From Japan in New York (1992), October in Normandy, ISCM in Seoul, Brisbane Music Festival in Australia, Alicante Music Festival in Spain (2000), Schreyahn Herbest in Germany (2004), Festival Présences in Cité de la Musique, Paris(2008), and the First Alexandrina Contemporary Music Biennale in Egypt (2009). In addition, Itakura appears regularly as music director and conductor of the Tokyo Sinfonietta at the Summer Festival presented by the Suntory Music Foundation. | |
 Cassatt Quartet |
The New York City based Cassatt String Quartet has performed throughout North America, Europe, and the Far East, with prestigious appearances at New York's Alice Tully Hall and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Tanglewood Music Theater, the Kennedy Center and Library of Congress in Washington, DC, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris and Maeda Hall in Tokyo. Established in 1985, this season the Cassatt performs for the American Academy in Rome, Cornell and Syracuse Universities and offers mini-residencies at the Centro National de las Artes in Mexico City, the University of Texas at Austin, Vassar College and at their annual educational residency, Cassatt In The Basin! in Odessa, Texas. The Texas Music Educators Association has selected the Cassatt to present a chamber music clinic based on their Odessa residency at their state conference in San Antonio. Fall marks the Cassatt's YouTube debut featuring Daniel S. Godfrey's "Romanza" and the CD release of quartets by Andy Tierstien and Dan Welcher, including "Cassatt", inspired by paintings of Mary Cassatt. Both CD's are on the Naxos label. In 2008, they joined celebrated American composer, Joan Tower during her seventieth birthday year through performances at New York's Symphony Space and Sarah Lawrence College. The Cassatt Quartet is in residence at the Seal Bay Festival of Contemporary American Chamber Music in Maine and has held residencies at Princeton, Yale and Syracuse University among others. Named three times by The New Yorker magazine's Best Of The Year CD Selection, they have recorded for the Koch, Naxos, New World, Albany and CRI Labels. The Cassatt is named for the renowned American impressionist painter Mary Cassatt. |
