"I am no longer trying to write Korean music; nor am I trying not to write Korean music." - Hyo-shin Na, composer
Please join us for an intimate performance that promises to blissfully blur the boundaries of Eastern traditional music and Western contemporary classical. Koto virtuoso
Shoko Hikage, a core member of the acclaimed Wooden Fish Ensemble, will play four compositions by innovative composer and Wooden Fish colleague Hyo-shin Na, who will provide an introduction and context for each piece. Following the performance there will be a Q&A session.
Program, for solo koto:
-Koto Music
-Five Pieces on Yoshie Hikage's Poems
-Night Procession of the Hundred Demons
-The Sky Was Beyond Description (for one player on koto and bass koto)
Shoko Hikage, koto/bass koto (Japanese zither)
Shoko Hikage began playing koto at the age of three. Her first teacher was Chizuga Kimura of the Ikuta-ryu Sokyoku Seigen Kai in Akita Prefecture, Japan. From 1985, she received special training from the 2nd and 3rd IEMOTO Seiga Adachi (hereditary head master of the Ikuta-ryu Sokyoku Seigen Kai). In 1988, Hikage graduated from Takasaki College with a major in koto music. She was then accepted as a special research student (uchideshi) at the Sawai Sokyoku In(Sawai Koto Institute) under Tadao and Kazue Sawai, where she received her master's certificate (kyoshi). Hikage also completed a one-year intensive seminar at the Sawai Sokyoku In. In 1992, she moved to Honolulu, Hawaii to teach koto at the Sawai Kotot Kai Hawaii (Sawai Koto Institute Hawaii branch) and at the University of Hawaii. In 1997, she moved to San Francisco where she continues her concert and teaching activities. Hikage premiered Hyo-shin Na's “Crazy Horse" for Korean Traditional Orchestra and Koto Solo with the National Orchestra of Traditional Instruments in Seoul, Korea in November, 2011. In the Bay Area, she also premiered Hyo-shin Na’s "Night Procession of the Hundred Demons", "Koto Music," and "Koto Ninano". In 2014, Hikage gave a solo recital with a program devoted to Hyo-shin Na's music for koto/bass koto at Buam Arts Hall in Seoul, Korea. The second CD of her playing of Na's music was released on the Top Arts Label in February 2015.
Hyo-shin Na, composer
After studying piano and composition in her native Korea, Hyo-shin Na came to the U.S. in 1983 to do graduate work at the Manhattan School of Music and the University of Colorado, where she received her doctorate. After moving to San Francisco in 1988, she met Cage, Rzewski, Wolff and Takahashi, and encountered the music of Nancarrow. At the same time, she made return trips to Korea to hear and study traditional Korean music while also taking a broad interest in the music of other regions of Asia.
Hyo-shin Na has written for western instruments, for traditional Korean instruments and has written music that combines western and Asian (Korean and Japanese) instruments and ways of playing. Her music for traditional Korean instruments is recognized by both composers and performers in Korea (particularly by the younger generation) as being uniquely innovative. Her writing for combinations of western and eastern instruments is unusual in its refusal to compromise the integrity of differing sounds and ideas; she prefers to let them interact, coexist and conflict in the music.
In Korea, she has twice been awarded the Korean National Composers Prize, and in the west she has been commissioned by the Fromm and Koussevitzky Foundations among many others. Her music has been played worldwide by ensembles as varied as the Barton Workshop, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the Kronos Quartet, the San Jose Chamber Orchestra, and the Korean Traditional Orchestra of the National Theatre. Portrait concerts, consisting solely of her music, have been presented in Amsterdam by the Barton Workshop (2006), in Seoul by JeonGaAkHoe (2009) and Buam Arts (2009), at Texas A&M University (2007) and in San Francisco and Santa Cruz, California by New Music Works in 2012.
She is the author of the bilingual book Conversations with Kayageum Master Byung-ki HwangK (Pulbit Press, 2001). Her music has been recorded on the Fontec (Japan), Top Arts (Korea),Seoul (Korea) and New World Records (US) labels and has been published in Korea and Australia. Since 2006 her music has been published exclusively by Lantro Music (Belgium).
Cost: Free