Shoko Hikage, koto/bass koto Yuki Yasuda, koto/bass koto Thomas Schultz, piano
- Program -
Koto, Bass Koto (2016)
Koto, Bass Koto II (2017) - World Premiere
Koto Music (koto duo version) (version for solo koto, 2011)
Koto, Piano (2014)
Koto, Piano II (2016)
Shoko Hikage at the Maybeck
Saturday September 9, 2017 at 3:00pm
This concert is $20 General Admission/ $15 Seniors & Students
Yuki Yasuda (13 & 17-strings Koto player)
Japanese koto player Yuki Yasuda based in Los Angeles, California. Ms. Yuki Yasuda, born in Japan, began playing the koto at the age of twelve. Ms. Yasuda majored in koto music and learned detailed instruction of koto from Tadao Sawai and Kazue Sawai who are the masters of the great modern koto music at the Takasaki Junior Arts College, graduating in 1997 and then served as a special student at the Sawai Koto Academy. During this period, she also graduated from the NHK (Japanese National Broadcasting Company) school for performers of traditional Japanese instruments. She performed with various groups and musicians, she also toured in Argentina, Honduras, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Germany, Canada, Puerto Rico and Russia. Ever since she relocated to New York in 2009, she has been keeping working together with musicians and composers of various genres. She performed as a koto soloist with Cape Ann Symphony Orchestra and Quincy Orchestra. Not only she is playing a koto but also she is giving a koto lesson. In the year of 1998, she passed the Sawai Koto Academy Masters examination as the master of the first prize and musician. In 2014, she relocated to Los Angeles, she has been giving her private koto lessons. http://www.yukiyasuda.com
SCHULTZ, THOMAS: Piano Thomas Schultz has established an international reputation both as an interpreter of music from the classical tradition: Bach, Beethoven, Schubert and Liszt – and as one of the leading exponents of the music of our time. Among his recent engagements are solo recitals in New York, San Francisco, Berlin, Paris, Ghent, Seoul, Taipei and Kyoto, and at the Schoenberg Festival in Vienna, the Piano Spheres series in Los Angeles, Korea’s Tongyoung Festival, the Festival of New American Music in Sacramento and the April in Santa Cruz Festival. He has also appeared as a soloist at the Other Minds Festival in San Francisco, and in chamber music performances with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the Da Camera Society of Houston, Robert Craft’s 20th Century Classics Ensemble and the St. Lawrence String Quartet. In 2005, 2010, and 2014 he gave masterclasses on the piano music of the Second Viennese School at the Schoenberg Centre in Vienna. He is currently performing the complete piano works of Schoenberg and making a set of videos of these performances accompanied by lectures on the music. His recitals are notable for programming that celebrates the continuing vitality of the piano repertoire, juxtaposing the old and the new. He has worked closely with such eminent composers as Cage, Feldman, Wolff, Rzewski, Earle Brown, Jonathan Harvey, Hyo-shin Na and Elliott Carter (in performances of the Double Concerto at the Colorado Music Festival and at Alice Tully Hall in New York. Schultz’s musical studies were with John Perry, Leonard Stein and Philip Lillestol. He has been a member of the piano faculty at Stanford University since 1994. http://www.thomasschultzpianist.com
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, 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), and at Texas A&M University (2007). She is the author of the bilingual book Conversations with Kayageum Master Byung-ki Hwang (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). www.hyo-shinna.com