The 2008 edition of Suntory Music Foundation's week-long summer music festival, "Music Today 21," will be held at Tokyo's Suntory Hall from August 24 to 31, presenting an array of artists that includes some of the world's most distinguished musicians as well as young artists from Japan, performing their latest musical works.
The festival's "Theme Composer" series, which surveys the greatest figures among contemporary music, will feature Stefano Gervasoni, who was born in Italy in 1962. This will be the first opportunity for Japanese audiences to hear a full program of the works of this composer, about whom it has been said "His music consistently takes the form of poetry that keeps speaking to us" (Salvatore Sciarrino).
Artists profiled at this web site will also be a part of the festival. In the series Les Espaces acoustiques, which presents works by the great contemporary composer Gérard Grisey to mark the tenth anniversary of his death, his final chamber piece, Vortex Temporum and others will be performed by Ensemble Nomad . In addition, Ms. Keiko Harada, herself a composer, will serve as jurist for the Akutagawa Award for Music Composition competition, to be held on August 31.
The "Music Currents" portion of the festival will present works by nine young composers from outside Japan over two evenings. None of these works were composed earlier than 2003, and all will be heard for the first time in Japan, making for an opportunity not to be overlooked.
Suntory Music Foundation http://www.suntory.com/culture-sports/smf/
