Toru Takemitsu Composition Award

It was so nice to see so many audience today, and I’m sure everybody has enjoyed the concert. At the beginning, I would like to express my gratitude to Maestro Kosuke Tsunoda and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. Also to the Tokyo Opera City Cultural Foundation I am very thankful to them for keeping their activity going even through the very hard time of the COVID-19 pandemic.
I think this competition is very important for the young composers because it’s a rare chance to hear their music performed by an orchestra. It’s unfortunate that it’s so rare, but still it’s a great to have these opportunities so that the young generation can study and develop their own talent. This is so important so I am really thankful to the Tokyo Opera City Cultural Foundation.

On page 17 of the program booklet [or here], you will find my comments which I wrote right after the screening. In fact, my impressions didn’t change that much even after today’s performance. But I think it would be rude just to say please read the program, so I would like to add some comments.
There were 107 pieces, and it was a really hard judging process. Of course, reading the scores was not easy, but when you consider the situation of contemporary music today, the diversity of the art is so wide and there was no one criteria for this composition judging.
And looking into the technique of how to handle the orchestra, the works were all at a very high level. So to be honest, how to make a decision was to choose the pieces I would love to listen to. Those were the four pieces you heard today.

Now I would like to comment on each piece in the order of performance.
First, tracé / trait by Yuheng Chen. In the program, I called this music “the traditionalism of our age.” Let me explain about this traditionalism. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for the musicians and audiences alike, there was some kind of common knowledge that music should be like this. In the twentieth century, those kinds of common knowledge declined and many types of music appeared. To be honest, even now there is a kind of idea that contemporary music should be like this. Especially at music universities or at large contemporary music festivals, they are presenting the kind of music that we can predict as “contemporary music”. What I call traditionalism is when you don’t have any doubts about these kinds of ideas. I’m not saying this is bad, but starting from these ideas and building high techniques, and making well-formed structures and accomplishing a certain height of music: that’s academism.
I didn’t think Mr Chen’s music was academic, but there is traditionalism in this music. His work remains within the range of contemporary music.
But what made his music very interesting was that he had a very strong desire to create his own sound and we could feel his strong intention. Rather than trying to write well-formed music, he was really eager to make a good sound in his music. That made me feel I would love to hear his music.

The other three pieces were outside of this traditionalism. Mr Yamabe’s Underscore is based on John Cage’s piece, and I thought his music had a spirit of playfulness throughout. Nothing was conventional, and it was as if he was enjoying playing a game and inviting the audience to play the game together.

Next, Yabal-al-Tay by Guillermo Cobo Garcia. As I wrote in the program, the composer has a strong belief in music as a kinetic energy. This strong belief is turning his music into a very characteristic and personal music.

When I read the score of Selvedge by Michael Taplin, I felt that he had an extremely detached attitude towards the sounds and his music. He is looking at his music from a certain distance, and it is as if he is making a piece of sculpture of sounds. That made his music very original and beautiful, different from the others.

Well I could go on, but I’m not expected to talk for long, so I would like to finish my comments and announce the results.
Music is never a thing to compete with each other, so I don’t really want to give first, second, third prize etc. But today is a competition, so I have to.
There is no fourth prize.
The third prize goes to Yuheng Chen: tracé / trait. He will receive 650,000 yen.
The second prize is awarded jointly to Koji Yamabe: Underscore, and Guillermo Cobo Garcia: Yabal-al-Tay. They will receive 750,000 yen each.
The first prize goes to Michael Taplin: Selvedge.
Thank you very much.

Edited by Tokyo Opera City Cultural Foundation