MARTY REGAN has composed over 45 works for traditional Japanese instruments and since 2002 has been affiliated with AURA-J, one of Japan's premiere performance ensembles for contemporary–traditional Japanese music. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1995 with a B.M. in Composition and a B.A. in English and East Asian Studies. From 2000 to 2002 he studied composition and took applied lessons on traditional Japanese instruments as a Japanese government-sponsored research student at Tokyo College of Music. In 2002, his composition Song-Poem of the Eastern Clouds (2001) for shakuhachi and 21-string koto was premiered at the 5th Annual Composition Competition for Traditional Japanese Instruments at the National Theatre of Japan. He completed his Ph.D. in Music with an emphasis in Composition at the University of Hawai'i, Manoa in 2006. His English translation of Minoru Miki's book, Composing for Japanese Instruments was published in 2008 by the University of Rochester Press. He is an Assistant Professor of Music at Texas A&M University.

S-R4a.
FOREST WHISPERS . . .
Selected Works for Japanese Instruments - Vol. 1

Original compositions featuring the shakuhachi, koto, and shamisen in various combinations along with Western instruments

1. 東雲の詩／Song-Poem of the Eastern Clouds (2001)
Shakuhachi: Seizan Sakata
21-string koto: Reiko Kimura

2-4. 細雪を想い... ／Evanescent Yearning... (2008)
Shamisen: Tetsuya Nozawa
13-string koto: Sahoko Nozawa

5. In Remembrance... (2006)
Shakuhachi: Seizan Sakata
Violin: Kioko Miki
Violoncello: Asako Hisatake
Piano: Yasuko Furuse

6. fastpass! (2007)
Shamisen: Tetsuya Nozawa
Ko-tsuzumi: Kaho Tōsha

7. 森が囁いて... ／Forest Whispers... (2008)
Shakuhachi: Seizan Sakata
Violoncello: Asako Hisatake

A Few Words from the Composer

I fell in love with Japan more or less by chance towards the end of my undergraduate career when I was planning to go to graduate school in music composition. The lure of Japan was irresistible, and I was first pulled to its shores for a three-year hiatus. By the time my first foray of living in this fascinating country was about to end, I had resolved to find a way to somehow engage myself with music anew without feeling that my time spent in Japan was in vain. In essence, I wanted to combine these two passions into one synergetic pursuit. I put the wheels in motion to return to Japan, this time to study Japanese instruments and music. Ten years later, in 2010, with the help of countless numbers of friends, colleagues, and mentors, this compact disc was born.

My works for Japanese instruments are deeply indebted to traditional Japanese musical aesthetics. Among the works on this compact disc, you will encounter the aesthetic concept of ma, roughly understood as “empty space,” which in the musical arts takes the form of dynamically-tensed silence. Borrowing an element from shakuhachi honkyoku–classical repertoire originally played by mendicant Zen monks–Song-Poem of the Eastern Clouds (2001) is designed with an element of rhythmic indeterminacy and uses proportional notation to facilitate a flow of musical time based on the natural patterns of the human breath. Proportional notation is also used in Forest Whispers... (2008), a duet composed for representative instruments from the “East” and “West.” In this work, the shakuhachi and violoncello are blended in such a way that they become nearly indistinguishable from each other. Additionally, traditional performance techniques and references to Japanese pitch collections abound in these works.

On the other hand, in more recent works I have attempted to draw upon my identity as a Western-trained American composer. For example, extensive use of counterpoint and modulation used for dramatic effect and to delineate form can be heard in In Remembrance... (2006). In celebration of my background in rock and popular music, the third movement of Evanescent Yearning... (2008) and fastpass! (2007) use driving, syncopated rhythms. In these compositions, the use of asymmetrical and mixed meter, not to mention repetition, can probably be traced back to my love for the music of Igor Stravinsky and Steve Reich.

Traditional Japanese instruments with a rich and cherished past are the means of expression in these works. At the same time, the music was born in an age where communication technology has resulted in the blurring, and in some instances the disintegration, of national, geographic, cultural, and linguistic boundaries to an extent unprecedented in the history of humankind. The works on this compact disc, therefore, are hybrid musical soundscapes that reflect the age in which we live, an era based not necessarily on globalization, but on partnership based on global cultural interaction.

I eagerly await the day that traditional Japanese instruments will be embraced on a global scale by audiences and composers alike.

- Marty Regan Bryan-College Station, TX (May. 2010)