Toshio Hosokawa, the best-known living Japanese composer, creates the unmistakable language of his music out of the tension between the Western avant-garde and traditional Japanese culture. Drawing closely from the aesthetic and spiritual roots of Japanese arts like calligraphy and Japanese court music, Gagaku, he gives musical expression to the idea of beauty arising from transience: “We hear the individual notes and at the same time we perceive and appreciate the process by which they arise and die away, a landscape of becoming that is in itself alive with sound, so to speak,” says Hosokawa. The composer is one of the winners of this year’s Goethe Medal. To honour this exceptional artist, four musicians from the prestigious Ensemble Musikfabrik, from Cologne, will perform key works by the artist at this evening’s event.
Toshio Hosokawa
Stunden-Blumen for clarinet, violin, cello and piano (2008)
Vertical Time Study I for clarinet, cello and piano (1992)
Etude IV for piano (2011 – 2013)
Extasis for solo violin (2016 – 2020) (New Version)
Small Chant for solo cello (2012)
MIT dem ENSEMBLE MUSIKFABRIK — Dirk Wietheger (Cello) | Hannah Weireich (Violine) | Ulrich Löffler (Piano) | Michele Marelli (Klarinette)
KOOPERATION — KUNSTFEST WEIMAR | GOETHE-INSTITUT E. V.
