{"id":8550,"date":"2024-07-08T09:36:57","date_gmt":"2024-07-08T00:36:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/?p=8550"},"modified":"2024-07-09T23:54:06","modified_gmt":"2024-07-09T14:54:06","slug":"ryoko-egawa-saxophone-solosolo2024-5-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/performance\/ryoko-egawa-saxophone-solosolo2024-5-21\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryoko Egawa Saxophone Concert “SOLOSOLO?” with Yoshihide Otomo
Meguro Persimmon Hall <\/small>
2024.5.21<\/small>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photo: Ryota Hikosaka<\/p>\n

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Before the show, the dimly lit space was illuminated beautifully with string lights placed on the floor. The fixed seats and the stage had been removed, leaving a full-floor venue with a total of three clusters of electric lights\u2014in the center and at both ends\u2014with the audience facing and flanking these. The distinctive arrangement of the saxophone and sho<\/em>, a traditional Japanese mouth organ, was intended for Toru Takemitsu\u2019s \u201cDistance,\u201d a piece that was to be performed on the day. But it was Ryoko Egawa\u2019s sensibilities that shone throughout the entire space from the very beginning to the end of this concert, whose audience was also treated to a variety of other \u201cdistances.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Photo: Ryota Hikosaka<\/p>\n

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Produced by Egawa herself, the concert was titled \u201cSOLOSOLO?\u201d and featured the saxophonist performing a total of eight pieces, including two new works by Yoshihide Otomo, alongside Otomo and sho player Hanako Nakamura. I had been looking forward to the show, having heard that Otomo would also be improvising on pieces other than his own compositions, and was curious as to how this would connect with the contemporary music Egawa would be playing.<\/p>\n

Egawa studied classical saxophone at Tokyo University of the Arts, and her originality began to show itself when she joined Chanchiki Tornade, a band founded by fellow Tokyo University of the Arts student Yuya Honda. In 2006 she became a regular member of Yasuaki Shimizu & The Saxophonettes, and she has also been part of the Otomo Yoshihide Special Big Band since 2013. As a solo performer she plays mainly classical and contemporary music, and she has also performed in duos with piano, harp, and accordion players as well as in saxophone quartets. Additionally, Egawa is often commissioned to perform premieres of new compositions.<\/p>\n

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Photo: Ryota Hikosaka<\/p>\n

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Yoshihide Otomo recognizes being deeply influenced by contemporary music in his wide-ranging activities as an improviser, free jazz player, and film score composer. His performance of a graphic score by John Cage at Yokohama Minato Mirai Hall\u2019s \u201cJust Composed\u201d in 2012 left a particularly strong impression on me. In addition, Otomo has guested with the contemporary music ensemble Ensemble Nomad and has been commissioned by the contemporary music composer Dai Fujikura to contribute a piece to each edition of Fujikura\u2019s annual \u201cBonkuri\u201d (Born Creative) festival.<\/p>\n

Before the show, an announcement was made that Otomo would be improvising in between the numbers listed in the program. The announcer\u2019s gentle but honest, \u201cAs we go along, you may well lose track of which piece he\u2019s playing,\u201d elicited relieved laughs from the audience. Indeed, half of the night\u2019s program consisted of works by Claude Debussy, Luciano Berio, Toru Takemitsu, Yuji Takahashi, Man Jie, and Otomo, all leading contemporary composers of the twentieth century, and many in the audience were hearing these pieces of music for the first time.<\/p>\n

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The concert began with a performance of Debussy\u2019s \u201cSyrinx.\u201d Written for solo flute in 1913, in the midst of the shift from classical to modern music, the piece has an ambiguous tonality that gives off a floating sensation. Egawa said she chose \u201cSyrinx\u201d because it seemed like an \u201cappropriate opening\u201d for the day\u2019s program. And as soon as this opener ended with its weak, fading tones, Otomo started playing gentle noises as a prelude of sorts.<\/p>\n

This was followed by Egawa\u2019s solo, \u201cSequenza IXb\u201d by Luciano Berio. An essential part of a classical saxophonist\u2019s repertoire, \u201cSequenza IXb\u201d is highly technical and takes about 14 minutes to play, requiring intense concentration from both the performer and listeners. I could feel the audience\u2019s focus level rise dramatically with Egawa\u2019s spirited performance. Otomo\u2019s guitar improv that followed was a lyrical one, in which a melody was derived from the overtones of a single note. It felt like a homage of sorts to \u201cSequenza IXb,\u201d which is built on the circulation of a specific sequence of notes.<\/p>\n

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Photo: Ryota Hikosaka<\/p>\n

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The next piece, Toru Takemitsu\u2019s \u201cDistance,\u201d was originally written for oboe and sho, and the composer instructs that the saxophonist and sho player be situated at a sufficient distance from each other. In most cases, the saxophonist is positioned on the edge of the stage, closest to the audience, while the sho player occupies a position at the back of the stage, on a direct line from the saxophonist. Due to this arrangement, the sound of the sho is often heard from farther away than that of the saxophone. This time, however, I was seated at a roughly equal distance from both the saxophonist and the sho player, so I was able to take in the sound from the side and experience the piece in a new way. The introduction of flexibility into the spatial relationship between the performers depending on the listener\u2019s choice of location made for a very pleasant experience that allowed me to freely perceive the new acoustic space generated by this work. Egawa used bass, treble, and voice to express the acoustic \u201cdistance\u201d of a single saxophone above Nakamura\u2019s rich sho notes, which radiated throughout the venue.<\/p>\n

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Photo: Ryota Hikosaka<\/p>\n

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With the audience now increasingly aware of the physical distance between the performers and the acoustic distance between their instruments, Egawa quietly began to play J.S. Bach\u2019s \u201cSarabande\u201d from \u201cCello Suite No. 2\u201d on her baritone saxophone. At the same time, Otomo improvised on his guitar, and the two moved on to Yuji Takahashi\u2019s \u201cEmbers.\u201d A highlight of the night, this performance was the first in which Egawa and Otomo\u2019s tones came together, the mellow tunes of the former\u2019s baritone sax resonating with the latter\u2019s noise and low, wall-clock-like guitar sounds. The whole hall was rocking, creating a unique atmosphere. Then, a dancer suddenly appeared between Egawa and Otomo, startling the audience\u2014a surprise appearance by Yasuyuki Shuto.<\/p>\n

Once Otomo\u2019s subsequent improv had come to an end and the temporarily overwhelmed audience had calmed down a bit, the concert moved on to \u201cAnother Door II,\u201d a piece for saxophone and electronics by Man Jie. With a harmonizer expanding the sound of fine saxophone snippets, what sounded like fragments of a pentatonic folk song from the composer\u2019s home region of Inner Mongolia were repeated strikingly. This piece made me happy every time those endearing bits showed up.<\/p>\n

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Photo: Ryota Hikosaka<\/p>\n

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The last two pieces were new compositions by Otomo. \u201cSolitaire for Sax and Deck of Cards\u201d was played solo by Egawa, who flipped playing cards while performing. The piece is based on the idea of reacting musically to cards that appear at random, \u201ctaking improvisation to its limits while interpreting the written notes differently every time, on the spot.\u201d Otomo says he wrote this piece with the intention of bringing out, to the greatest extent possible, Egawa\u2019s limitless \u201cmultilingual\u201d potential and rich improvisational nature by way of a compositional work. Taking in the melodies and fragments of sound played one after another stimulates the listener\u2019s imagination in a variety of ways. The second new piece, \u201cDuration for Soprano Sax, Sho, Turntable, and Prepared Guitar,\u201d was performed by three players. A line of sound that began with the note A was played by the sho and saxophone before gradually starting to shift with different pitches and timbres. Then, as Otomo\u2019s electronic tunes joined in, the various elements began interacting with each other and expanding the music; in time, the trio\u2019s sounds seemed to combine into an auditory belt that permeated the venue. The three players then closed the concert with an encore performance of Yuya Honda\u2019s \u201cNatsu no nihohi.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It was interesting to experience how the mind transforms the abstract sounds emanating from Otomo\u2019s improvisation into tangible bits of imagination. These are sounds with a sense of reality. And just when you\u2019re hearing these rich tones shaking every inch of the venue, noise; a howling sound cuts through the air and is delivered to the very edge of tolerance, all but forcing you to cover your ears. I couldn\u2019t help but groan in delight at how the performance, although improvised, was able to evoke a sense of space and a calculated sonic distance between each enunciator and the audience. The rich sonority and smart musicality of Egawa\u2019s saxophone, which filled the entire hall from a fixed position, coupled with music played with solid technique to bring about a whole new world. Given that \u201cSOLOSOLO?\u201d combined improvisation with pieces by some of the most decorated composers of the twentieth century, I wonder whether Egawa and Otomo could have achieved such remarkable synergy without a considerable amount of trust existing between these two musicians. Furthermore, the concert demonstrated how short, as a result of Egawa and Otomo\u2019s years of collaboration, the \u201cdistance\u201d between these two musicians has become.<\/p>\n

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Translated by Ilmari Saarinen<\/small><\/p>\n

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