Description
A work depicting the love of a mother bird watching over her young as they come of age and take flight.
First performed in 2017 by pianist Kotaro Fukuma, the piece soon expanded beyond its original piano solo form into three additional duo versions with violin, cello, and clarinet. After several years, in 2025, all four versions are being published in revised scores. These new editions, revised by the composer herself, Minako Tokuyama, now include a beautifully crafted coda that lingers in resonance, bringing a new life to the work.
From the composer’s preface — Minako Tokuyama
“This piece expresses the feelings of a mother bird watching her children take flight into the vast sky. The loneliness and joy, the bittersweetness, the memories—so many emotions intermingled after the children leave the nest. I sought to convey those unspoken feelings through sound. The starting point of the composition was not when my own sons had already left home, but one morning in 2011, when I realized they would soon do so. After they hurried off to school, I looked at their untidy room, and in that moment I suddenly envisioned the room after they had truly left—and the melody came to me.”
Minako Tokuyama — Profile
After attending the Music High School attached to Tokyo University of the Arts, Tokuyama graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts and later the Berlin University of the Arts. She studied composition with Tomojiro Ikenouchi, Akio Yashiro, and Isang Yun.
She received the Excellence in Composition Prize at the 5th Fukui Harp Festival International Composition Competition (1992), and served as a jury member in 1995. The same year, she won first prize at the Vienna International Composition Competition under Claudio Abbado (the first Japanese laureate). Her ballet Memento Mori, awarded at the competition, was premiered at the Wien Modern Festival (1996) and later staged by the Vienna State Opera Ballet in 1997.
Tokuyama has served as a judge for the Japan Music Competition (2003, 2004) and was commissioned to compose for the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition (2006). Her works include Musica Nara (set piece, Hamamatsu), Oriental Garden (set piece, Japan Harp Competition, 2017), and many others, performed by leading artists such as Naoko Yoshino and Kotaro Fukuma.
Her style, both dignified and graceful, has earned repeated performances worldwide. Dance of Prelude — after Shōen Uemura (2018) was described by Le Monde as “music as delicate as silk.” At the same time, she has written approachable works such as The Town of Deep-Sea Fish for NHK’s Minna no Uta.
In recent years she has composed monodramas and many works dedicated to Yasuto Kasuga and Nobuko Kasuga. Her latest oratorio The Path of Light — The Love of Hosokawa Gracia (with Yasuto Kasuga as Tadaoki Hosokawa), premiered in January 2025 under the baton and pianism of Kaze Jitsukawa, received great acclaim.
