SATORU IKEDA
*12 March 1961
Works by SATORU IKEDA
Biography
Satoru IKEDA, born in Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka prefecture in 1961, studied composition with Hiroshi OTSUKI and Shin SATO. Having received a B.A. in Education from Shizuoka University in 1983 and an M.M. degree in Composition from Tokyo University of the Arts in 1987, he is currently the musical director at Shimamura Music Co., Ltd. and a member of the Japan Society for Contemporary Music. He loves to play the piano and cello.
Satoru IKEDA has won 20 awards and distinctions, including: First Prize in The Music Competition of Japan (1988); an award from the Japan Symphony Promotion Foundation (2000); a prize for outstanding work in The Orchestral Song Composition Competition (2001); Third Prize and the Orchestra Award in the Luxembourg International Composition Prize (2004); First Prize in Sogakudo Japanese Lied Competition (2004); 1ª Mención de Honor in the First International Composers Competition for Piano Works, "Bell'Arte Europa" (2005); First Prize in the Kendo Music Composition Competition for the EXPO Kendo events (2005); an award from the "Handel-Inspired" Chamber Organ Composition Competition (2007); First Prize in the Flute Orchestra Composition Competition by the Japan Flutists Association (2008); Third Prize in the Shakuhachi Chamber Music International Prize (2008); short-listed in The British Harpsichord Society 10th Anniversary Composition Competition (2012); Third Prize in the Alfred Schnittke International Composers' Competition (2018); selection for the Sacrarium International Composers' Competition (2018); and 1° Prize Ex-Aequo in the Musica Prospettiva's International Call for Scores (2019-20).
Ikeda's works have been performed in the Exhibition of Contemporary Music "Works for Brass IV" by JSCM (2007), the Sydney International Composers Concert (2017), the ISCM World New Music Days in Beijing (2018), the 46th Pan Music Festival (ISCM South Korean Section, 2018), with works selected for the ISCM Virtual Collaborative Series (2020) and for the ISCM in Shanghai and Nanning (2021). Recently, two albums include his work won the awards one for string orchestra, Best Classical Album of the Akademia Music Awards (2021), the other for flute and cello, Clouzine International Music Awards – Best Contemporary Classical Album by Various Artists (2025).
REVIEWS
—After some flute soliloquizing, the cello enters as if opening a Bach solo cello suite before veering into our time zone. The confluence of the two instruments is marked by a refreshing consonance. The piece is timeless and lovely. (Neo-Summit Yugawara, for alto flute and cello: 2025) / Colin Clarke
—The ultra-expressive "Hataori", the most "modern" and powerful work on this recording. (HATAORI, for string orchestra: 2020) / Piotr Grella-Mozejko
—Multiplying the two instruments with sound movements derived from the motion of physical objects, the development of the clear contrast attracts the listeners. (Brown Brownian Motion, for guitar and marimba: 2013) / Jun'ichi Ishizuka
—A highly-atmospheric work made from a series of single tones covering the entire range of the harpsichord, with many colours arising from the development of chords and passages. (Prism, for harpsichord: 2013) / Pamela Nash
—There are some "echoes of heart" and "distant silences" as if one had entered into infinite space. Some sparks are projected into a limpid vision of the universe. Each reverberation of the saxophone and the piano consort refreshingly. And the ending is very impressive. (Psaume, pour saxophone alto et piano: 2011) / Hiroshi Otsuki
—This new contemporary piece incorporates virtuosity through an incredible arrangement of the "Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2" of Chopin. (Nocturne of Chopin for piano 6 hands: 2011) / EuroMusic Publishing
—Dante's "Divine Comedy" as the text, layering tonality and contemporary music. (Te lucis ante, for children's choir and piano: 2008) / Koichi Nishi
—Religious and serious. It is said that the composition was made with a requiem in mind, but it is not an easy transplant into an existing Requiem style. There is consistency in both harmony and tone system. The Renaissance-style counterpoint and harmony that appear in the middle section create an attractive contrast, which is marvelous. However, it is difficult to understand how the Japanese text (excerpts from Dante's "Divine Comedy" Purgatory, translated into Japanese by the composer himself) permeates and is reflected in the music. (do.) / Hiromi Saito
—An audacious movement of "expansion" of the respective traditions of the two instruments pushed as they are at times to the limits of the possible, increasing the expressive range, the texture of the dialogue, the harmonic dimension and the tone-colour. The listener can either follow this music in all its minute and complex particulars, or let himself be freely transported by his own vision and dream in no specific direction. (Ki-e, for shakuhachi, guitar, violin, viola and cello: 2008) / Andrew MacGregor
—Several motifs from the "Water Music" appear in this work, which seems to illustrate many water "features", not just bubbling, but flowing, cascading, freezing, evaporating, drenching… (Water Bubbling, for chamber organ: 2006) / Paul Ayres
—Eighteenth-century keyboard arrangements of the Air and Bourrée from the Water Music, are followed by a splendidly inventive piece by Satoru Ikeda in his 'Water Bubbling'. This is, as Paul Ayres notes, full of watery 'effects'. It well deserves to find a place in recital programmes. (do.) / Glyn Pursglove
—One beautiful use of the chamber organ comes from Satoru Ikeda, whose quasi-minimalist Water Bubbling makes clever use of … (do.) / Oxford Academic
—An exploration of light in a wind orchestra. There are gradations of light, various relationships, and darkness before the light arrives. (Planetarium, for wind orchestra: 2006) / Ito Ohya
—The score is like a miniature painting, with ornamentation and other sounds written in extremely precise detail. The fine sound cells scattered throughout the stage frequently interplay with each other, and it can be imagined that the performance is extremely difficult. Sound particles and colors flicker, shimmer and draw shadows. (do.) / Manabu Matsumoto
—He dreamed his Fireworks, rather as Stravinsky had his Octet. (Fireworks, for chamber orchestra: 2003) / Peter Grahame Woolf
—The composition, which sets off in a direct direction, burning energy without flinching, not letting the heat source cool down, and retaining the brushstrokes, brings a vigorous atmosphere. Beginning in an ecological environment, the high notes of the wind instruments intermingle, the gravity of the bass counters them. The scherzo in the development section has a lot of notes, but it does not lose its lightness. The roar of the brass gradually thickens. Despite the single movement with a classical title, the emotion of prayer was permeated as the theme in almost all four sections. (Orchestral Offering: 1999) / Akira Ueno
—The atonal piece, full of tension, regains classical tonality at the end. (Piano Concerto: 1988) / Tokihiko Umezu
—Intensifying dynamic energy with vigorous écriture, also enriched layered sounds. (Variations pour 5 instrumentistes: 1985) / Akira Ueno
—Absorbing the style of Shin Sato's works, rather romantic. (do.) / Yasushi Togashi
About the music
PRINCIPLES
Beginning with a first principle, with the creation of music that is comparable to classical music with sounds not found in classical music, the question stands: what is classical music—but music characterized by severity and extraordinariness? Deciphering tone systems in musical analysis remains an objective, and mechanical work equivalent to the analysis of keys and harmonies in the classics. However, it is most essential that a composer discover where evidence of "the extraordinary" is hidden beyond the mere tone system. The first half of composition is an attractive exposition, and the second half a witty dramatic development constructed of the same material as the first: that's the formula of classical music! All music inherited should remain so, even today, and every work of art that will be handed down in posterity has always a universality behind its overwhelming individuality. There is no difference between ancient and modern times in the joy of love or in the sorrow of death. Artists simply depict them vividly with cutting-edge taste. Furthermore, whether "severity" can be achieved is ultimately a matter of innate human nature.
By implication, then, and according to a four-fold division, all styles principally "other than" can be classified: (1) music that is comparable to classical music with sounds in classical music; (2) music that is not comparable to classical music with sounds in classical music; and (3) music that is not comparable to classical music with sounds not found in classical music.
AN EVOLUTION OF STYLE
(A first dawn.) Around the age of 10, Satoru Ikeda took piano lessons from Mr. Hajime Ozawa whose house was near the sea. One day, Satoru was given a homework assignment: draw waves with a brush to visualize the evolution of a sonatina's expression. Satoru drew an oscillograph-like curve. However, the teacher took a pencil. "Here is the climax!" The teacher's full-page drawing looked like Katsushika Hokusai's "Kanagawa-oki Nami Ura (The Great Wave off Kanagawa)". Satoru recalls a second occasion following one of his lessons. With a typhoon approaching, the teacher invited Satoru down to the beach, along with another fellow student and both their mothers. "I really like these furious waves!" said Mr. Ozawa. His teacher would later encourage Satoru to improvise. "Produce as scary a sound as possible." Satoru played something like a fragment of an adagio in minor. Only then, Mr. Ozawa played something that astonished his student. "Is this really music?" thought Satoru. It was a long pianissimo dissonance (cluster) in the lowest register, when suddenly high-pitched, lightning-like sounds were emitted. It was powerful—the teacher's fully enacted expressions!
(A second dawn.) When he was in junior high school, one of Satoru's teachers played in class Isao Tomita's synth record. The electric sounds danced in such a supernatural way. It was jovial, majestic... Satoru thought that the synth would fundamentally change classical music. A second encounter with synth took place in high school. A fellow student played a synth with trombone and electric guitar at a school festival. He bought synth manuals and all the synth records he could find; but as Satoru was amid studies for his entrance exam to the Shizuoka University Faculty of Education, he would wait to buy a synth until after passing his exams. He was preoccupied during this time by recording strange songs and piano pieces that he composed himself. Yet, his desire for a synth only grew. Satoru continued to experiment by changing the playback speed and by altering his recordings.
In between piano practices, Satoru composed juvenile piano pieces (after Beethoven and Tchaikovsky), and there grew in him a desire to compose an orchestral piece. He bought a piano arrangement of Schubert's "Unfinished", as well as the orchestral score, thinking that he would learn if he orchestrated with reference to the piano score. Satoru bought a music writing pen. He wrote only a few bars of the score, but then soon gave up. Satoru realized that it was not a rational way to learn and that it was impossible to study on his own. On sleepless nights, he would listen to Bruckner's symphony in bed, especially the 3rd in D minor.
(1979-) In a period of study at Shizuoka University, life divided into two, before and after fugue training. Ikeda's composition blossomed with tape works using multiple recordings of synth, which he began around his time of university entrance. Noting the influence of Isao Tomita, Satoru put forward a spatial, noise-driven sound that first year. "Jehovah's Dance" was introduced to the students at the College of Early Childhood Education and Care through the intermediary of Hiroshi Otsuki, his professor of composition. Students were so enthusiastic about it that they commissioned some dance music based on the composition.
In his second year of study, Mr. Katsuyuki Narita, a graduate of the Department of Composition at the Tokyo University of the Arts, arrived to teach solfège. Mr. Narita collaborated with full-fledged studio to produce professional synth works. Narita listened to Ikeda's work, and Ikeda listened to Narita's. Ikeda found it a marvel, and immediately incorporated Narita's style into his own "Musical Diary". Mr. Narita held that the essentials of music should be enhanced without sound effects.
In Satoru's third year, Prof. Otsuki recommended a summer course in Grenoble on fugue (by Michel Merlet, professor at the Conservatoire de Paris). After taking the course, while he was awakened to counterpoint and harmony, which is the essence of music, Satoru found himself only able to compose austere pieces, and his synth works rapidly became quieter. In his fourth year, Prof. Otsuki introduced Satoru to Shin Sato, a professor at the Tokyo University of the Arts, who repeatedly pointed out that "the rhythm is simple." A few months later, Sato would praise the rhythm of one of Satoru's sonata forms.
(1983-) Upon graduation from Shizuoka University, Ikeda went on to enroll in short-term graduate studies at the Tokyo University of the Arts, and would later win the Japan Music Competition. When asked by Prof. Sato about his goal for graduate studies, Satoru replied, "for you to teach me to write orchestral music." Satoru was asked to arrange a piano piece by Debussy or Beethoven. He arranged the first movement of Beethoven's last sonata, from the introduction to the beginning of the exposition. It was pointed out that the introduction, where the double-dotted chords change key when they are struck one by one in pianissimo, was not at all reflected. Sato scrawled with a red pen in the margin, "Listen to the performance of the sonata by Pollini and Schnabel (of complete works, monophonic)." Sato also wrote, "The orchestration links to the style and the musical language← original." Satoru moved on from arrangement and the following week took up his own orchestral work.
Not yet having expertise in orchestration, Satoru imitated a renowned Japanese composer who exceeded Satoru's ability. Sato left even more red ink on Ikeda's score, as were his comments a crushing wave with growing power and enormity: "Aiming for a tone that can't be produced with a single instrument, it can't be helped, but don't write for volume" … "Focus the expression on one side or the other (so as not to orchestrate while remaining contradictory)" … "Solo, a2, and a3 become more IMPERSONAL" … "Louder, MUDDIER" … "Mixing disparate tones tends to sound dull!" Only then, at the invitation of a friend in the composition department, Satoru's score was immediately remade into a work for 10 brass, three percussionists, and tape—and premiered under his own conducting! In late June, at a university arts exchange festival held in the lobby of the Shinjuku NS Building., Prof. Otsuki was present for Ikdea's premiere.
(1991-) Satoru found the period of 1991 onwards one of stagnation, yet necessary labour: a symphony and string quartet (both disposed), hundreds of works for musical dictation, instruction for the Tokyo University of the Arts entrance examination, chamber opera, and operetta.
(1999-) In 1999, starting with "Orchestral Offering", Ikeda wins prizes in several international composition competitions.
(2010-) The decade of 2010 would see an establishment of Ikeda's style. Having insight into those PRINCIPLES above, beginning with the creation of music that is comparable to classical music with sounds not found in classical music … Ikeda subsequently revises and further develops individualistic and fundamental compositions into a variety of works.
(2020-) It is on the back of establishing one's own style—in climbing that Great Wave of the human spirit—that a composer will make some statement about the psychology of music, about that process and dynamic of self-actualization: the value of a human life and the artistic value of music. For a reason stemming from none other than joy and curiosity, Ikeda would challenge himself to take up the cello, and amid all release a CD on Phasma-Music, Warsaw. In 2024, Satoru Ikeda's scores are published by Universal Edition.
