"Mind Mirror: Nyodai's Dream"
(1998)
World Premiere
for shakuhachi, pipa and bass koto
Composed by Yuriko Hase Kojima
Ned Rothenberg (shakuhachi)
Min Xiao-Fen (pipa)
Masayo Ishigure (koto)
The composer, Yuriko Hase Kojima, holds a Doctor of Musical Art degree in composition from Columbia University. Ms. Kojima is currently an adjunct lecturer of Music at the Tohogakuen School of Music in Tokyo. Recipient of the Andrew Mellon Fellowship and the Rappaport Composition Prize, she was nominated for the 1998 Composition Award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is a member of the Japan Federation of Composers and the International Computer Music Association, and her works have been performed in the Americas, Europe, and Japan. "Mind Mirror: Nyodai's Dream" was completed in October 1998 for dedication at the memorial service to the extraordinary female Zen master, Mugai Nyodai.
It is especially fitting that the composer chose to include the pipa,
a Chinese instrument, in this trio. It provided a special connection with
Abbess Mugai Nyodai's teacher, the Chinese monk Wu-hsueh Tsu-yuan. Rinzai
Zen was a new import to Japan at the time that she was studying, and Mugai
Nyodai chose to pursue what was then the "modern" cutting edge of continental
religious teachings of her day. It is also fitting that this musical offering
represented not old, but new creative directions of musical composition
for traditional Chinese and Japanese instruments.
Ned Rothenberg, the shakuhachi player, has toured worldwide
and is well known as a composer and performer on the shakuhachi,
flute, clarinet, and saxophone. He began his shakuhachi studies
in 1978 with Ralph Samuelson in New York and continued in Japan with the
masters Goro Yamaguchi and Katsuya Yokoyama.
Min Xiao-Fen, the pipa player from Nanjing, has been a
top prize winner at pipa competitions throughout the People's Republic
of China, and has represented her government in a series of worldwide concert
tours. A resident of the United States since 1992, she has performed with
the Brooklyn Philharmonic and the San Francisco Opera Symphony Orchestra,
among others. Her CD "The Moon Rising" (Cala) was reviewed by BBC Music
Magazine as "one of the best CDs of 1996".
Masayo Ishigure, the koto player, was a disciple of Tadao and Kazue Sawai and graduated from the Traditional Japanese Music Section of the Music Department of Takasaki Geijutsu Tanki University. Since 1992, she has taught koto, shamisen, and sangen at Wesleyan University, the Lotus Fine Arts Studios and the Tenri Cultural Center in New York City. Ms. Ishigure has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and elsewhere throughout the United States and France.
