Akiko Yamane - Glittering Pattern

Biography

Akiko Yamane

Born in Osaka in 1982.

Yamane, in her own words, “[tries] to create music using the concept of "visible sound" as a figurative art. The phenomenon of sound is in fact invisible, but as it is experienced as installation art, I strive to enable the listener to trace the outlines of sound movement and feel shapes, colors, textures and the space beside them in their own inner perception.”

Yamane studied composition at the Kyoto City University of Arts with Hinoharu Matsumoto from 2001-2007, and at Hochschule für Kuenste Bremen with Younghi Pagh-Paan from 2005-2006 as an exchange student. Yamane also studied composition with Motoharu Kawashima privately. She participated in a Composition Master Course in Akiyoshidai's Summer (2003), at the Composers Forum in Tokyo (2004), in the Takefu international music festival (2005, 2007 as an invited composer), and at Royaumont Voix Nouvelles in France (2006).

Yamane’s numerous awards and grants include the Meiji Yasuda quality of life scholarship (2004), the Kyoto Musical Association prize (2005), a finalist of the Takefu Composition Award (2005), the Togashi Prize of the 22nd JSCM Award for Composers (2005), 1st Prize of the Music Competition of Japan (2006), and the Akutagawa Prize (2010). 

Her works have been performed in Tokyo, New york City, Paris, Bremen and commissioned by the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Izumi Sinfonietta Osaka and many ensembles and players. She organizes experimental music events “eX.” with composer Motoharu Kawashima in Tokyo from 2007. She staged a sound installation “Dots Collection No.06” in Kyoto, 2011.

 Glittering Pattern

(by the composer herself) 

This piece is made up of glittering "continuums."  

To me, a musical continuum is a seemingly infinite and static strand of music that, 

upon close inspection, is actually glittering with activity. 

Such continuums are packed to the brim of a frame. 

In this piece, the framework is the temporal constraint of one minute, 

 and the continuums are free to form patterns within this frame.

The material of the continuums is derived from one passage of a Philip Glass piece. 

 I sampled a string of arpeggios from the passage, 

deconstructed it by statistically analyzing its motion, 

reconstructed it, and then ornamented the resulting material.

I sculpted this piece with a sense of joy and 

also with feelings of great respect and admiration toward Philip Glass.

Glittering Pattern was written for Nicolas' captivating project.