December 19, 2020
Composition Title: Circle hasu l A Concert of APNM Electronic Music in honor of Mario Davidovsky, 1934-2019
mixed media of performance of voice and body, and fixed media of voice
Duration: 9:05
Circle hasu is about nature veneration, animism, peace, and a woman’s body.
Nakamura interacts with a media sound about nature through her stories about a woman’s body in a society.
Two languages of Japanese and English, vocal sounds, melodies, and field recordings in Iriomote Island in Yaeyama, Okinawa prefecture, in Japan is used.
The work develops around a circle of themes that starts and ends with a lotus flower: hasu, tree, the sun, lake, wave(s), before sunset, ground, dinner table, forest, the moon, the sea, mountain, and the sky; each story connecting with the element of time of a day and a night.
Difficulties a woman’s body holds are woven into the stories about nature, which end toward a peaceful prayer.
The last story is about the sky:
Body of the cosmos
Moves in the darkness
Unconscious goosebumps
In the quietness, fly a bird and...
July 11, 2019
Composition Title: pieces on prayer l Jim Santy Auditorium, VU Symposium
Structured composition for improvisation of voice and body movement, 2018-19
Duration: 18:00
Program Notes:
The work is a practice of resilience against violence. “The River”, “Life of A Flower—War and lullaby”, and “Night before War” are presented through voice and body movement: experimental improvisation based on structured compositions and storytelling.
The set of works is a prayer and my decision as a human being not to repeat the history of war. Coming from the ethnic background of Japanese and national background of Japan and the US, I have always felt the responsibility to owe history. I want to focus on my role not to repeat wars and not to use weapons as a tool of human policies through art.
I will perform three small pieces of voice and body movement in sequence: (1) "The River", a composition of melody, body movement and media premiered at the New York Public Library and which will be arranged for this set of pieces to a shorter arrangement of voice and body movement, (2) "Life of a Flower -War and lullaby-", and (3) "Night before War", my music composition that will be arranged for the VU Symposium. All the three pieces focus or include orality of music, improvisation and elements of lullaby. The River: I was inspired by the meaning of Shatemuc, the Hudson River in Lenape language, the river that runs both sides. It reminded me of the flow of the river and flow of people, including the forced incarceration of Japanese Americans in the U.S., and forced captivation of women by the Japanese army during the World War ll. The piece goes back and forth the time when people traveled in canoes through the river, the time people traded people、 and the time people were forced to move. The piece finally ends with an old man and his granddaughter meeting across the River, seeing it as the Jordan River or Sanzu no Kawa, the river of life and death. "Life of a Flower –War and lullaby-" is a story of a flower that lived during a war time. The flower sees a mother and a child, and hears their singing, and also witnesses how they are lost through a war. "Night before War" is also centered around a vulnerability that is taken away by war. A mother is telling a child a story a night before a war comes. She sings to the child in the piece. It talks about the vulnerable and precious world we live in and how we create it through everyday life and love in the whole natural world, the whole eco system.
The set of pieces is told through melodies, songs, sound improvisation, body movement, and English and Japanese words.
Thank you: C.V. Starr Fund of Asian/Pacific/American Institute, and Dean’s Conference Fund of Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University for financial support of Aine E. Nakamura at VU.
The work was presented at The Third VU Symposium for experimental, electronic and improvised music. July 10-12, 2019,
held by Listen/Space in collaboration with Westminster College Florence J Gilmore School of Music, Park City Library, and Marriott Library Digital Archives.
Theme: PUSHING THE ENVELOPE
December 13, 2018
Composition Title: Life of A Flower -War and lullaby l Solo l premiered at the Jerry H. Labowitz Theater for the Performing Arts, NY
voice, body movement *improvisation based on a structured composition
Duration: 05:20
December 24, 2018
Composition Title: takayoshi e
Solo for piano
Duration: 4:00
May 14, 2018
The New York Public Library
Composition Title: The River l Solo l premiered at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Bruno Walter Auditorium
voice, texts, body movement
Duration: 05:50
Program Notes:
The Hudson River (Shatemuc as called by the original inhabitants of Manhattan) flows both to the north and the south surrounded by the stiff rocks that are the grounds of Manahatta (hilly island). The archive of paintings of the river connected Nakamura with the old days of Manhattan/Manahatta when dolphins swam around the island, the flow and relocation of people in the history and at the current age. This solo piece is an exploration of body movement, texts, sound and a song: an offering to the River and question to the repeated history.
Photograph Acknowledgements:
The New York Public Library Digital Collections
Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project is a digital archive of videotaped interviews, photographs, documents, and other materials relating to the Japanese American experience. Additional information is available at www.densho.org
Harumi Nakamura
May 09, 2017
Arnhold Hall, The New School
Composition Title: On the Night of the New Moon (新月の夜) l solo l premiered at the Arrnhold Hall, The New School
voice, piano
Duration: 05:57
The composition was recorded at Piano Studio Noah Toritsudaigaku Tokyo on June 15 2018.
The lyrics/poetry is published in Eleven and a Half Journal Spring 2018.