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Akira Nishimura's String Quartet No. 5 in Japanese Premiere at the Kusatsu International Music Festival

Jul. 10, 2014

Akira Nishimura's <em>String Quartet No. 5</em> in Japanese Premiere at the Kusatsu International Music Festival

Akira Nishimura’s String Quartet No. 5 “Shesha” receives its first Japanese performance by the Arditti Quartet as part of the 35th annual Kusatsu International Music Festival in August. The performance takes place on August 26 at Japan’s Kusatsu Concert Hall. Nishimura has served as Music Director of the Festival since 2010.

The work, which received its premiere by the Arditti Quartet at London’s Wigmore Hall in October of 2013, was written in honor of Irvine Arditti’s 60th birthday. For the composer, the word ‘shesha’ refers to “the name of a gigantic snake with thousands of heads, which appears in an Indian myth. It lives beneath the ground and supports the earth. Shesha’s awakening means the earth’s awakening.” Nishimura describes the piece as a “celebratory small ring of sound.”

Later this summer, the composer’s autograph score for Adagio to the Memory of Wolfgang Schulz, for flute and strings, will be added to the archive of collected works at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna. The work was composed and dedicated to the memory of Wolfgang Schulz, who was principal flutist with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and a colleague of Nishimura’s at the Kusatsu International Festival. Adagio received its premiere at the Kusatsu Festival in 2013.

For more information on Akira Nishimura, please visit www.zen-on.co.jp.

Details on the Kusatsu International Summer Music Festival can be found at kusa2.jp.

Akira Nishimura
String Quartet No. 5 “Shesha” (2013)
15’

Adagio to the Memory of Wolfgang Schulz (2013)
for flute and strings
12’

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