Premiered in Tokyo on the 19th of June 2010 as part of the Tokyo Wonder Site program, ‘Hair’ variations has been an ongoing project between Japanese composer Chikako Morishita and myself. Here is a video of the Tokyo performance :

\’Hair\’ variations

It has been revised and performed at LASALLE College of the Arts on the 26th of October 2010 and exhibited in Berlin at the Bethenien Art centre as part of an exchange with TWS in May 2011……

In November I had the privilege once more to work with and perform Chikako’s solo saxophone piece – this time on the monolithic Suomelina Island in Johan Tobias’ Studio near Helsinki..

‘Hair’ variations (2010)
Chikako Morishita (composition) + Timothy O’Dwyer (saxophone/ improvisation)

12th November 2011, 4:15pm, HIAP studio at Suomelina

http://www.hiap.fi/suomenlinna

About work
Variation0: Mind (longing) *an independent piece ‘Hair’
Variation1: Tongue
Variation2: Nose
Variation3: Eye
Variation4: Ear
Variation5: Body
Variation6: Mind (will)

Hair is an emblem of surging of desire—the original piece ‘Hair’ is made up of trajectories alternately illuminated and thrust into shadow, and transforms from the world of ‘instability’ into ‘stable, sonorous and rhythmicised’ world which eventually unfolds into a place of continuity.

‘Hair’ variations is a performance work consisting of the original piece ‘Hair’ and six variations in which sentences on Kenko Yoshida’s essays in idleness provide the framework. Each of version of the original piece and variations correspond to six human sensations—Mind (Longing), Tongue, Nose, Eye, Ear, Body and Mind (Will).

The work is about transformation: the composer’s musical language into the performer’s ‘own’ creative language; notation (symbols on the paper) into physical gesture (sounds being the results of the instrumentalist’s physical movements); practice-based music (a composition developed from an observation of instrumental practice) into improvisation created ‘here now’— is a fully-notated piece and is a fully-improvised piece with the numbered pieces in between allowing for greater or lesser proportions of the performer’s creative input.

ARTIST’S profile

Composition: Chikako Morishita (Japan/Germany)
Chikako Morishita is a Japanese composer and pianist based in Tokyo and Berlin. Her work has been performed in Asia and Europe including ‘Asian Music Festival (Tokyo)’, ‘Bethanien-Kreutzberg Art Festival (Berlin)’ and ‘Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (Huddersfield, UK)’. As a pianist, she has regularly played with Tokyo Philharmonic at major venues such as ‘Tokyo Opera City Composium (Tokyo)‘ and ‘Suntory summer festival (Tokyo)’ where she worked with composers Helmut Lachenmann, Tristan Mulaillu, Joji Yuasa and Dai Fujikura. Her work focuses on the area of intercultural exchange and explores interrelationship between performer’s sensibility, their physicality and music’s form. Currently she is engaging with ELISION Ensemble, Richard Hayes/ Paul Hubner/ Stephen Menotti trio, and several solo performers. She is a PHD candidate at the University of Huddersfield, UK, under supervisions of Liza Lim and Aaron Cassidy.

http://www.tokyo-ws.org/english/creator/m/chikako-morishita.shtml