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Yoko Hiraoka plays and sings the evocative
classical music of Japan. Spanning 400 years and inspired by Nature and
Romance, this music of sung poems, solo instrumental, and ensemble playing
is a pinnacle of cultural refinement in Japan.
In a formal concert setting Yoko Hiraoka presents
the very finest Japanese traditional and modern music. The production
is elegant and powerful. The stage setting is colorful and evocative.
The full range of the instruments -- Koto, Shamisen and Jiuta Voice --
is demonstrated in music ranging from Edo-period classical pieces to
recent Japanese compositions. Yoko Hiraoka also offers ensemble music
with one of the world's finest Shakuhachi players.
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Yoko Hiraoka is a senior master performer
of Koto, Shamisen and Jiuta voice. Her professional performance career
originated in Kyoto, Japan and spans almost 30 years. As a Jiuta singer
she draws on literary sources as varied as the Kokin-waka shu and the
Tales of Genji and Heike, performing classical pieces from the early
17th. Century onwards. Her repertoire includes Twentieth Century contemporary
Japanese works for koto and shamisen. She performs extensively in both
countries at festivals, concerts, lectures-recitals, and in television
and studio recordings. She has been a member of Kyoto Hogaku Group (an
orchestra of traditional Japanese instruments) and Kyoto Sankyoku-kai
in Japan. She also plays with the Kyoto-based Shikandaza Ensemble.
Performances have included playing on the
album Mandala by Kitaro, and performing at the International Shakuhachi
Festival, Art Institute of Chicago, Bowdoin College, the Aspen Dance
Festival and at other venues including Emory University, Portland Art
Museum, the World Bank Headquarters in Washington, D.C. and major music
festivals throughout the USA.
Yoko Hiraoka has taught world music ensemble
at the University of Colorado and currently teaches students at Naropa
University in Boulder. Her repertoire includes contemporary compositions
and improvisations with Western instrumentalists.
The instruments,
Koto, Shamisen, and Biwa also embody traditions of craftsmanship
and finish as old as the music.
Koto
More than 1000 years ago, a Chinese musical exchange with Japan yielded the
Koto, a long zither whose crouching dragon shape has become integral to Japanese
sound.
Made from hollowed out Paulownia wood, the
Koto's thirteen woven strings stretched over ivory bridges are plucked
and strummed, setting the whole instrument into vibration with a lyrical
harp-like quality.
Bass Koto provides a wider and lower range
of pitches in response to western musical influences. Thicker strings
and a larger body provide deep and powerful tone colors.
Shamisen
In the Edo period (1603-1868) the Shamisen, a skin-covered lute, took the musical
world by storm. Its importance is central in all the varied modes of Japanese
music. Used as a folk instrument in Okinawa, it was refined from the 17th
century onwards and is used with voice in the classical repertoire and as
a solo or ensemble instrument.
Percussive in nature, its fragile construction
belies the powerful sound it produces. The three woven silk strings are
plucked with a bachi made of ivory. The silences between notes are as
powerful as the notes themselves
Biwa
Troubadours of ancient Japan used Biwa in the storytelling tradition. Pear-shaped
with four or five strings and played with a large plectrum, it was brought
from China to Japan in the late 7th century with other instruments of gagaku
(court music).
Often used as a solo instrument with voice,
the Biwa has found a place in many strata of Japanese society from beggarly
priests to court nobility.
Jiuta Voice
The lyrical singing style called Jiuta has long, drawn out, poetic phrases
often in a deep and resonant timbre, a theater of voice depicting the moods
and seasons within classical themes of Love and Nature. |
