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 twenty awards and distinctions including First Prize in The Music Competition of Japan in 1988, Awarded from the Japan Symphony Promotion Foundation in 2000, Prize for outstanding work in The Orchestral Song Composition Competition in 2001, Third Prize and The Orchestra Award in the International Composition Prize Luxembourg 2004, First Prize in Sogakudo Japanese Lied Competition in 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 in 2005, Awarded from the "Handel-Inspired" Chamber Organ Composition Competition in 2007, First Prize in the Flute Orchestra Composition Competition by Japan Flutists Association in 2008, Third Prize in the Shakuhachi Chamber Music International Prize 2008, Short-listed in The British Harpsichord Society Tenth Anniversary Composition Competition in 2012, Third Prize in the Alfred Schnittke International Composers' Competition 2018, Chosen for the Sacrarium International Composers' Competition 2018 and 1° Prize Ex-Aequo in the Musica Prospettiva's 2019-20 International Call for Scores.
His works have additionally been performed in the Exhibition of Contemporary Music 2007 "Works for Brass IV" by JSCM, the Sydney International Composers Concert 2017, the ISCM World New Music Days 2018 in Beijing, the 46th Pan Music Festival 2018 (ISCM South Korean Section), chosen for the ISCM Virtual Collaborative Series 2020, and selected for the ISCM 2021 in Shanghai and Nanning. Recently, an album for string orchestra including his work won the award for Best Classical Album of the Akademia Music Awards in 2021.
PRINCIPLES
Creating music that is comparable to classical music with sounds not found in classical music.
...The question then stands, what is classical music, but the most important character is severity and extraordinariness. Deciphering tone systems in music analysis is an objective, mechanical work equivalent to the analysis of keys and harmonies in the classics, but rather the most essential is to find out where the evidence of the extraordinariness is hidden beyond the mere tone system. The first half is an attractive exposition, the second half is a witty dramatic development but constructed of the same material as the first half... that's the formula of classical music. Music should be like that, even today. Every work of art that will be handed down to posterity always has a universality behind its overwhelming individuality. There is no difference between ancient and modern times in the joy of love or 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.
In addition, all styles can be classified into four categories by the expression of the headline of this article. Other than the PRINCIPLES, "music that is comparable to classical music with sounds in classical music," "music that is not comparable to classical music with sounds in classical music" and "music that is not comparable to classical music with sounds not found in classical music."
REVIEWS
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
THE EVOLUTION OF THE STYLE
The dawn 1) When he was a kid around 10, he took piano lessons from Mr. Hajime Ozawa. One day, Satoru was given a homework task to draw waves with a brush to visualize the evolution of a sonatina's expression, and he drew an oscillograph-like curve. However, the teacher told him, "Here is the climax," the pencil drawing over a full page looked like Katsushika Hokusai's "Kanagawa-oki Nami Ura (The Great Wave off Kanagawa). The teacher's house was near the sea. One evening, when a typhoon was approaching, after the lesson, the teacher invited another student and both mothers to the beach and said, "I really like these furious waves!"
On another day, Mr. Ozawa told Satoru to improvise, "Produce as scary sounds as possible." Satoru probably played something like a fragment of an adagio in minor. But what Ozawa showed Satoru astonished him: "Is this really music?" It was a long pianissimo dissonance (cluster) in the lowest register and suddenly high-pitched, lightning-like sounds were emitted. Among other things, what was particularly powerful was the teacher's full of acting expressions!
The dawn 2) When he was in junior high school, the teacher played Isao Tomita's synth record in music class. The electric sounds danced in a supernatural way. It was jovial, majestic.... He thought the synth would fundamentally change classical music.
The second encounter with synth took place in high school. A student played a synth with trombone and electric guitar at a school festival. Since then, the desire to buy a synth has only grown. He bought synth manuals and bought all the synth records he could find. But he was in the middle of studying for the entrance exam for the Shizuoka University Faculty of Education, so he could not buy a synth until he passed. Instead, he enjoyed recording strange songs and piano pieces that he composed himself. He even changed the playback speed to alter the sound.
Meanwhile, in between piano practices, he composed juvenile piano pieces admiring Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. He also had a growing desire to compose an orchestral piece. He bought a piano arrangement of Schubert's "Unfinished" and the orchestral score, and thought he would learn if he orchestrated with reference to the piano score. He also bought a music writing pen. He wrote a few bars of the score but gave up continuing. He may have realized that it was not a rational way to learn and that it was impossible to study on his own. On sleepless nights, he liked to listen to Bruckner's symphony in bed, especially the 3rd in D minor.
1979-) Period of study at Shizuoka University, divided into two before and after fugue training:
His composition blossomed with tape works using multiple recordings of synth, which he started at the same time as he passed Shizuoka University. Influenced by Isao Tomita, whom he was fascinated with when he was in high school, he put forward a spatial, noise-driven sound in the 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, and the students were so enthusiastic about it that they commissioned a dance music based on. In the second year of Shizuoka University, Mr. Katsuyuki Narita, a graduate of the Department of Composition at the Tokyo University of the Arts, came to teach solfège for a year only in his class. Mr. Narita has also teamed up with full-fledged studio user to produce professional synth works, he listened to Ikeda's work, and Ikeda listened to Narita's work. Ikeda marveled at it, and immediately imitated it in his "Music Diary". Mr. Narita pointed out to him that the essentials of music should be enhanced without sound effects.
In the 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 are the essence of music, he could only write austere pieces, and his synth works rapidly became quieter. In the fourth year, Mr. Otsuki introduced him to Shin Sato, a professor at the Tokyo University of the Arts, who repeatedly pointed out that "the rhythm is simple." Later, when he brought a study piece in sonata form, Sato praised him for the rhythm.
1983-) Enrollment in the Tokyo University of the Arts, completion of the Graduate School and winning the Japan Music Competition:
Upon graduating from the Shizuoka University, he enrolled in the Short-term Course at the Tokyo University of the Arts. When asked by Prof. Sato about his goal, he replied, "I would like to go to graduate school, so I would like you to teach me to write orchestral music." He was asked to arrange a piano piece by Debussy or Beethoven, and 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 every time they are struck one by one in pianissimo, was not reflected at all, and Sato wrote with a red pen in the margin, "Listen to the performance of the sonata by Pollini and Schnabel (of complete works, monophonic)." On the other hand, he also wrote, "The orchestration links to the style and the musical language← original," hence studying arrangement was finished and from the next week he took his own orchestral work. The score he wrote not having expertise in orchestration, imitating a renowned Japanese composer's score, exceeding his ability, with great effort was scrawled by Sato with a red pen as if to crush the score with much more enormous power than for the arrangement: "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" and "Mixing disparate tones tends to sound dull!" ... etc. Then, at the invitation of a friend in the composition department, it was immediately remade into a work for 10 brass, 3 percussionists and tape, and premiered under his own conducting in late June at an arts public university exchange festival held in the lobby of the Shinjuku NS Building. Prof. Otsuki came to listen to the performance.
1991-) Stagnation: Symphony, String Quartet (both disposed), hundreds of works for musical dictation, instruction for the Tokyo University of the Arts entrance examination, and Chamber Opera, Operetta
1999-) Starting with "Orchestral Offering", he won prizes in several international composition competitions.
2010-) Establishment of style: Having the PRINCIPLES above, Creating music that..., some individualistic and fundamental compositions were subsequently revised and developed into a variety of compositions.
2020-) Self-actualization: The value of a human life, the artistic value of music. Start playing the cello. CD released on the Phasma-Music, Warsaw, and from 2024, scores are published by the Universal Edition.