The Ryogoku Art Festival (RAF) is a music festival taking place in the downtown shitamachi area of Ryogoku. RAF began in 2015 as a project to explore the possibilities for a range of piano music. With a change of artistic director every year, the festival has become a celebration of distinctive two-piano music.
With composer and spatial acoustician Asako MIYAKI as Artistic Director, this year’s event explored the possibilities of piano music with a Steinway piano in the concert hall and the tech-enabled virtual appearance of two more pianos. The event also delved into the spatial possibilities of Ryogoku Monten Hall. The three-program event entitled “Echolalia, Topophilia” comprised a hybrid streamed and in-person concert and symposium: the multi-speaker system at the venue provided an immersive environment while the stream enabled the experience of on-demand viewing with virtual-reality video and virtual surround sound.

Artistic Director: Asako MIYAKI
Art Direction: Jun KOSAKA
Spatial sound design, System planning: Yoshihisa SUZUKI
Virtual surround adviser: Takuya Kanna
Performers: Masanori Oishi, Sumine Hayashibara, Hiromi Osaka, Mikako Mizuno, others