Suntory Hall's recital hall, the Blue Rose, will be the setting for the latest production by cellist Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, "Various Aspects of Solo Works for Cello" on Wednesday, November 19, 2008.
To Mr. Tsutsumi, who has performed around the world with numerous artists, "Playing music together with someone always brings the joy of being able to have a conversation -- whether its with a man, a woman, old or young or from whatever country."
Since 1991 his own series of concert productions have been bringing lesser-known cello masterworks and cycles of large-scale cello compositions to the Suntory Hall stage.
The November 19 concert -- the eighteenth in the series -- will be devoted to solo pieces by Japanese composers. Previously, Mr. Tsutsumi has presented world premiers of unaccompanied works of Japanese composers like Toshio Hosokawa, Tokuhide Niimi and Akira Miyoshi. He will be continuing on in this direction with an all-out solo recital for his upcoming concert.
He says this program is the product of his own way of relating to music.
"Since my first contact with Bach solos I have never lost the desire to perform those solo pieces that occupy a special place within myself. It's a way of getting back to my origins as a performer and finding out more and more about the cello's possibilities."
Among the program's featured works will be Toshiro Mayuzumi's "Bunraku, " with the cello taking both the parts of the shamisen and the tayu (narrator), and "Ohju" by Tokuhide Niimi, a piece that uses a technique like kakegoe in Noh, (drummers shouting out rhythmical sounds) to express spacial expanse and the flow of time. A new work by Toshiro Saruya especially commissioned for this program will also be on the program.
Here is a chance to experience an unaccompanied cello performance of works other than Bach or Kodaly. It should be well worthwhile to all, but perhaps especially to young musicians and music fans.
