In many ways similar to Four Winds on Festival opening night, Koan, curated by violinist Natsuko Yoshimoto, brings to Adelaide audiences both new sounds and the finest in exponents.
This time six pieces of contemporary Japanese chamber music for up to four players; Yoshimoto on violin, Akikazu Nakamura on shakuhachi, Claire Edwards on percussion and Bernadette Harvey on piano.
If it is impertinent to identify any of these as the stand out performer on the night, then certainly the one who most captures the attention was Edwards. Her work on various percussion instruments, including some remarkable innovations in the name of achieving a particular sound (particularly during Joji Yuasa’s Mai Bataraki), as well as sublime control of tempo and timing highlight why is she is recognised worldwide as one of the most striking and important percussionists of her generation.
Once local boy, James Cuddeford (now resident in Hong Kong), rounded off the night with the premiere of his Koan III, a work commissioned by the OzAsia Festival. (Sadly, yet also gladly, James was absent from this performance as he awaits the birth of his first child.) This work brings all the players together, not just playing at once but physically as well as both Yoshimoto with her violin and Nakamura (looking rather like a character out of James Bond movie) and his shakuhachi gravitate during the piece from the extremities of the stage to be around the piano and percussion by its conclusion.
For an experience of new music for Adelaide ears, superbly – hauntingly and beautifully – performed by world class performers, Koan was an experience not to be missed.
Kryztoff Rating 4K
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