Tokyo Concerts Lab., 2024 Photo by Ayane Shindo
Tokyo Concerts Lab., 2024 Photo by Ayane Shindo
Tokyo Concerts Lab., 2024 Photo by Ayane Shindo
Bunraku is traditional Japanese puppet theater. Within the genre, Mukai has focused on Otome Bunraku, which is performed by a single female puppeteer, reconstructing puppet theater from archive materials, and creating a new musical and artistic work that reinterprets events in society, history, memories, and relationships.
The concert featured works for electro-acoustics and instrumental music still rarely performed in Japan, Tokyo District 7 (2017) for piano and computer, “Le Magnolia” (2023) for cello and computer, “Bishoujo Kakumei: Drama Queens” (2022) for euphonium and computer, “Partita” (2022) for unaccompanied violin and based on traditional music, and “Futari Shizuka” (2021) for shakuhachi and recorder. Mukai also demonstrated the possibilities for Bunraku and beyond in a new Otome Bunraku piece incorporating video and electroacoustics, created in collaboration with Puppet Theatre HITOMI-ZA.
Mukai Hibiki
A native of Shizuoka Japan, HIBIKI MUKAI (b.1993) is a music composer, pianist, and new media artist.
Hibiki has composed for a variety of performing arts: contemporary dance, movies, and theatrical art, and he very frequently works in collaboration with other artistic performers and creators.
He has received numerous prestigious international awards, including the Lawson-May Award (UK), 1st Prize at the 6th Matan Givol International Composers Competition in Tel Aviv, “Marin Goleminov” International Composition Prize in Sofia, Festival Musica Academy’s prize 2018 in Strasbourg, 1st Prize at the ORDA-2019 Composition Competition in Amsterdam, 1st Prize at the 84th Music Competition of Japan, the Iwatani Prize, the Meiji Yasuda Prize, the Miyoshi Prize and 1st Prize at the 33rd ACL Young Composers Competition in Manila, and the Diploma Prize at the 8th International Jurgenson competition in Moscow.
His works have been commissioned and selected by the NHK [Tokyo], Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation [Lisbon], Ukrainian Institute (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ukraine), Gaudeamus Music Week [Utrecht], Festival Musica [Strasbourg], CEAM [Moscow], Elektro Arts [Cluj- Napoca], Japan Federation of Composers Award, EMW [Shanghai], NYCEMF [New York], and ICMC [Shanghai, Daegu]. To date, he has been awarded scholarships by the Rohm Music Foundation, the Kakehashi Foundation, the Yamaha Music Foundation, and the Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Company.
In addition to these accolades, Hibiki received his Bachelor’s degree from Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo in 2016, and completed his Master of Music degree in Sonology at the Royal Conservatoire of the Hague in 2019. He has studied composition with Midori Okubo, Shirotomo Aizawa, Masahiro Ishijima Takayuki Rai, Richard Barrett, and Wim Hendrickx. Hibiki is currently based in Porto, Portugal, and the Hague, the Netherlands to pursue a PhD degree in digital media at the University of Porto (FEUP) as the fellow from the Agency for cultural affairs, Government of Japan.
Hibiki Mukai’s works are published by Edition ONGAKU NO TOMO (Tokyo, Japan) and will be published by Edition Tre Fontane (Münster, Germany) and Éditions Durand (Paris, France) in 2020.
Tokyo Concerts Lab.（Shinjyuku City, Tokyo）
