Toru Takemitsu Composition Award

4 Finalists selected for Toru Takemitsu Composition Award 2023
[Judge: Jo Kondo]

05 Dec, 2022

Jo Kondo, judge of the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award 2023, has chosen the following 4 orchestral works out of 107 entries from 31 countries (Countries & Regions) eligibly accepted by 30 September 2022. Screening was done with the anonymous scores having only their titles.
These 4 nominated works will be performed on 28 May 2023 at the Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall : Takemitsu Memorial for Mr. Kondo’s final judgement. Here is the list of finalists in order of their entry.

Applications for 2023（PDF/133KB）

Year 2023 Jo Kondo (Japan)

Finalists (in order of entry)

Comments for the Final / as a single judge
for the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award 2023

Yabal-al-Tay for symphonic orchestra

The strength of this work springs from the composer’s firm belief in music as kinetic energy. The orchestra is treated as a collection of 57 soloists to create a linear, almost monodic music. The articulation of each sound constituting the melodic line is blurred intentionally by small simultaneous, heterophonic deviations in pitch and rhythm, shared between many voices, so that the line becomes perceived as a dynamic flux of energy. This is a powerful work in which the composer’s musical thought is well articulated through appropriate compositional techniques. However, my feeling is that it may need a string section twice the size of the string section specified by the composer in order to achieve the sound that the music seems to demand.

Selvedge for full orchestra

What impressed me about this work, which consists of the juxtaposition of prolonged chords, is the extremely detached attitude taken by the composer towards the sounds. The composer is standing outside of the sounds, neither involved nor intoxicated with them, observing them with serene eyes, and placing them calmly on the canvas of time. Each chord appears to be, though embracing rich linear movements within it, static in nature, and never serves to form any directional progression through its harmonic structure. The overall form of the piece, which is but mere juxtaposition of three blocks with no teleological orientation, is non-directional, never suggesting any developmental or narrative discourse. This music stands still quietly in front of the listener, as if it were something extrinsic to human being. This speculation on the work may sound idiosyncratic to most of the public. Still, this is how I found the piece.

Underscore for orchestra

This piece is in the form of what might be called a ‘theme and 6 characteristic variations’ written, according to the composer’s notes, on materials drawn from Cage’s Dream, although little of this source is recognizable aurally. The compositional idea of taking an existing piece and transforming it into a new different work is reminiscent of the Renaissance technique of so-called parody mass. The attempt to rejuvenate the ancient technique with this composition suggests a possible alternative to ‘quotation’, which has become used too commonly today, as a means to exploit existing pieces in new compositions. The curiously ‘naïve’ elements including non-functional tonal harmony, simplistic figures, and knowingly awkward movements that characterize this work have been derived from the original piece of Cage.

tracé / trait für Orchester

I could find more than a few pieces in the submitted scores that display an excellent compositional métier. Among them this work is highly noteworthy for its musical clarity and well-balanced structure that (at the risk of being misunderstood) we might even say, exudes classicistic grace. The composer is manipulating modernistic sound material including extended instrumental techniques and micro intervals within what fundamentally constitutes traditional modes of thinking such as counterpoint (re. combination of lines) and harmony (re. interrelationship between line and vertical sonority). The skillfully crafted musical continuity (devoid of any oddity) sounds ‘natural’ in the 18th century sense of the term. I have no hesitation in calling this music the traditionalism of our age, as distinct from academism that respects métier for its own sake.

Jo Kondo