Description
This article can be switched to the following languages: 日本語
A composition for female voice solo by the Japanese composer, Ittetsu SHIMIZU. This work explores the possibilities of voice expression while using “instruments” such as polyethene bags and triangles. It was premiered in 2018 by vocalist Noriko Yakushiji. It is recorded in her first CD “Mnémosyne” (available on streaming services such as Apple Music and Spotify).
From program notes
The word “Nenia” has the Latin meaning of “Lullaby” as well as the meaning of “elegy”.As the title suggests, this work is contradictory to life (= lullaby) and death (= elegy) the image has been transferred. This piece is dominated by the text which decomposes the word “Nenia” which is the title, decorated and made into phonemes, but it eventually transforms into an old Japanese lullaby.
Ittetsu SHIMIZU Profile
Born in Yokohama in 1976, he was awarded several prizes in composition, such as the Japan Society for Contemporary Music (JSCM) Award for Composers (the best-new-talented award, 1999), the Music Competition of Japan (composition, 1999), The Japan Federation of Composers (JFC) Award for composition (2001), Takefu Composition Award (2005), and International Composition Prize Luxembourg (1st prize, 2002). He studied composition with Mikai Masami, Takashi Fujii, and Naoshi Kukiyama. His works are played internationally. In September 2017, the CD album “Lover on the Staff” by Aita Mizuki (Vibraphone and percussion), featuring Shimizu’s work “Camera Obscura” for Vibraphone, was selected as a secondary recommendation recording in the monthly musical magazine, Record Geijutsu (Art of recordings), which is the Japanese equivalent of Gramophone magazine. The concert entirely featuring Shimizu’s works, held in April 2018, is highly appreciated by Mercure des arts, a web-oriented critical magazine.
He has been an assistant in education and research at the Performance Arts Center of Tokyo University of the Arts, and a part-time lecturer in the art management department of Kurashiki Sakuyo University. He is a member of the Japan Federation of Composers.
