European American Music Distributors Company is a member of the Schott Music Group

Zen-On Releases New Publications of Works by Jun Nagao, Shin-Ichiro Ikebe, and Teruaki Suzuki

Dec. 03, 2024

Zen-On has announced the release of four new publications by Jun Nagao, Shin-ichiro Ikebe, and Teruaki Suzuki. 

Jun Nagao's Le regard droit for saxophone quartet was commissioned by Bunkyō-ku Academy to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Bunkyō Civic Hall and was first performed on September 27, 2020 at Bunkyō Civic Hall by three members of the Siena Wind Orchestra (Shōgo Sakaemura, Takumi Kainuma and Tatsushi Ōtsu) and Ryōko Egawa. Nagao notes:

"I composed this work in 2020 in response to a commission from Bunkyō-ku Academy to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Bunkyō Civic Hall. My intention was to create a celebratory piece, but since I worked on it in the middle of the Covid pandemic, the dark feelings that enveloped me at the time inevitably found their way into the piece.

There’s an expression in Japanese to the effect that a samurai should maintain his honor and dignity even when experiencing dire poverty and not knowing where his next meal is going come from. I’m no samurai, but I hoped by analogy in writing this piece to be able to maintain a sense of dignity without displaying any weakness, but it was precisely because this was not possible that I felt attracted to the notion of self-respect inherent in this approach. What we regard as important differs from one person to the next, but we need to continue focusing on what we consider important no matter how difficult the situation we find ourselves in may be. The French word droit, meaning ‘law’, encompasses the varied meanings of the English word ‘right’ as well as meaning ‘straight’ and it was this multiplicity of meaning that inspired the title Le regard droit. The piece itself is characterized by a sense of flaying around while at the same time maintaining this aspiration to self-respect and pride. My original idea was to create a work in a single movement, but I felt that I wanted to maintain a greater distance, leading me to revise this idea by creating two-movement work, the first movement in a fast tempo and the second in a slow tempo followed again by a fast tempo. By the time we reach the end of the piece, there is not so much a sense of having arrived at a final destination point as of providing a glimpse of a sketch. I hope that performers will convey a sense of how this approach might be extended further away into the distance."


Excerpt of Jun Nagao's Le regard droit performed by members of the Hikarigaoka Girls' High School Wind Orchestra

Composed five years earlier, Nagao's KACHO-FUEI for wind orchestra was commissioned by Bunkyō-ku Academy to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Bunkyō Civic Hall and was first performed on May 24, 2015 at Bunkyō Civic Hall by the Kawaguchi Ensemble Liberté Wind Orchestra under Shintarō Fukumoto. The composer explained:

"The title Kachō-Fūei is a neologism literally meaning ‘poetic discourse on flowers and birds’ coined by the poet Takahama Kyoshi (1874-1959), and it represents the basic ideal of the Hototogisu school of poetry of which he was the leader. In essence, it refers to the belief that haiku poetry should be concerned with providing an objective and detached representation of phenomena in the natural world that occur with the passing of the seasons and of the human responses to them. There is an expression in Japanese: kachō no tsukai (‘messenger of flowers and birds’) which originates in a story that the Chinese Tang dynasty emperor Xuanzong (r. 712-56) employed an envoy or messenger (tsukai) to seek out the most beautiful women in the empire, and the term came to be used in classical Japanese literature to denote a messenger who would intercede in conveying romantic messages between lovers. In terms of human emotions, Kyoshi appears to have been particularly interested in kachō-fūei in the context of romantic relationships between men and women, and it was this notion that gave me the idea for the structure of this piece.

My aim in the piece is to celebrate human relationships while providing a poetic eulogy of Tokyo’s Bunkyō-ku ward. Although located close to the centre of Tokyo, Bunkyō-ku is full of greenery and combines contemporary urban functions with a strong sense of the district’s illustrious historical legacy. The piece attempts to revel in this scenic contrast, with my aim being to depict the ward’s overflowing vitality along with its underlying lustrous sensuality.

Much of my compositional output is based on relatively matter-of-fact, unemotional concepts, but I would like performers of the present work not to base their realization on such an approach, but rather to place importance on how to bring out a natural sense of breathing and emotional content."


The Ensemble Liberte Wind Orchestra performs Jun Nagao's KACHO-FUEI

Shin-ichiro Ikebe's Toward a Peaceful Morning for violin, viola, and harp was commissioned by Ginza Juji-ya and premiered on May 20, 2024 at Oji Hall (Tokyo) by Teiko Maehashi, violin; Nobuki Imai, viola; and Ayako Shinozaki, harp for Ginza Juji-ya's 150th anniversary concert. Ikebe notes:

"Ginza Juji-ya is a shop that I frequently visited during my student days to buy music and scores. The year 2024 marks its 150th anniversary, although these days it serves principally as a salon with an emphasis on harp and flute performances. I have known the shop’s director, Chieko Nakamura, for a long time and have taken part in the planning of various musical events at this salon. A concert featuring violin, viola and harp was planned to celebrate this important anniversary, and I was asked to write a piece for this combination of instruments because of the dearth of pieces hitherto composed for it. 

I worked on the piece during the spring in expectation of the new dawn of peacefulness that awaits on the far side of this 150th anniversary. The sound and the flow of the work are characterized throughout by a mood of tenderness and tranquillity. My idea was to revisit the scene depicted in my earlier work of 2005, A Wing of Quietness, for violin, viola and cello. The piece was premiered in a lavish concert by three illustrious musicians."

Finally, Teruaki Suzuki's Carmina for countertenor, tenor, baritone, cello, and piano was commissioned by Point de Vue vol.17 and the world premiere took place on April 30, 2024 in Tokyo by Noriyuki Kubo, countertenor; Seiji Kanazawa, tenor; Kouhei Otsu, baritone; Koya Suzuki, cello; and Azusa Suzuki, piano. Suzuki notes:

“Carmina is a quintet ensemble combining countertenor (or alto in some cases), tenor, and baritone voices with cello and piano.

It takes as its text Volumes 3 to 13 from Carmina by Quintus Horatius Flaccus, a poet from southern Italy who lived from 65 to 8 BC during the days of ancient Rome. The poems in Horatius's Carmina are mainly lyrical poems. Volumes 3 to 13 of the text are composed of four stanzas in four lines. “O, Fountain of Bandusia!” is composed of rhetoric anthropomorphizing a fountain said to have existed in Horatius' home town of Venusia, and paints the picture of a mythological world.

The pronunciation of the source Latin poem is conceptually indispensable to the music, with the material of the vocalized sounds functioning as a component of the musical tone. The vocal part develops the forms of both polyphony and homophony in accordance with the scenes. The multi-layered ensemble that the vocals create with the cello and piano is composed of diverse audio images.

Wanting to hear the resonance of this ensemble mediated by the light, the colorings, and the legendary spaces of the ancient Mediterranean, I immersed myself in that fantasy and, hoping to create painting through sound, put pen to paper."


Premiere performance of Teruaki Suzuki's Carmina

To learn more about Jun Nagao, Shin-ichiro Ikebe, and Teruaki Suzuki, visit: zen-on.co.jp.

Jun Nagao
Le regard droit (2020)
for saxophone quartet
13'
View sample pages

KACHO-FUEI (2015)
for wind orchestra
pic.2fl.ob.eh.bn.cbn.Ebcl.3Bbcl.acl.bcl.2asax(2.ssax).tsax.bsax-4hn.3tpt.3tbn.euph.tba.cb-pno(cel)-hp-timp-5perc
11'
View sample pages

Shin-ichiro Ikebe
Toward a Peaceful Morning (2024)
for violin, viola, and harp
8'
View sample pages

Teruaki Suzuki 
Carmina (2024)
for countertenor, tenor, baritone, cello, and piano
text (Latin) from Carmina by Quintus Horatius Flaccus
12'
View sample pages

News