Performed by Rubiks Collective at Melbourne Recital Center on April 29, 2021

Kim Tan, flute
Lucy Price, cello
Jacob Abela, piano
Kaylie Melville, percussion

Composition

In the language of the bloom (2021)

Meg Rohrer, violin
Sophia Schwartz, visual art

Learn more about the project here: akarikomura96.wixsite.com/akarikomuram…moongreeting

Moon Greeting  IV. Last Quarter

Moon Greeting  III. Full Moon

Moon Greeting  II. First Quarter

Moon Greeting  I. New Moon

The piece is bookended by two different bird calls; the opening is a synthetic digital signal while the ending is a real animal call in the natural environment. 
The soundscape composition captures a bustling train station in the corner of Tokyo, Japan. The auditory perspective shifts from waiting on the station platform to the railroad crossing, and finally to the ticket gates. The currents of passengers add a fluctuating drone of footsteps and chatter.

In a flock (2023)

Premiered on January 13, 2023 at UC San Diego Conrad Prebys Concert Hall

Anita Chandavarkar, Flute
Andrew Crapitto, Double Bass

Sounds can store and evoke memories of places. It is the act of listening that extends across the environment composite of sonic phenomena. Our ears subjectively perceive sonic impressions and develop subjective associations. Conversely, our bodies can store and embody sonic memories. In particular, the bodies of musicians assimilate corporeal memories through sonic expression. Multitudes of physiological and psychological phenomena are rendered to fabricate a microcosmic soundscape through the act of soundmaking.
The piece derives from the intersubjectivity in the listening and soundmaking bodies. There is an intuitive subjectivity in our attention to sound and its embodiment. The piece originates from an idea of reflexive attention to sonic events in the immediate soundscape and reflexive response by re-enacting them in a performative context. In other words, the piece explores the idea of releasing sounds from their original spatial and temporal associations and freeing them up to many sonic possibilities in a performative microcosm of soundscape.
The score invites the players to be observant and attentive with their kinetic motions in playing the instruments. It poses a process-oriented approach to soundmaking where the sonic results are a culmination of body intuition, choreographed movements, and intersubjective perception of listening.

Scope of Senses (2022)

Premiered on December 8, 2023 at UC San Diego Conrad Prebys Concert Hall

Anita Chandavarkar, flute
Grace Talaski, clarinet
Tommy Dougherty, violin
Robbie Bui, cello
Andrew Crapitto, bass
Camilo Zamudio, percussion
Mitchell Carlstrom, prepared piano
Steven Schick, conductor

back and forth, a trail of time

I. New Moon [0:00~]
II. First Quarter [3:28~]
III. Full Moon [6:48~]
IV. Last Quarter [9:08~]

Meg Rohrer, Violin
Sophia Schwartz, Visual art
The four musical movements were set up as four separate voicemail greetings during the moon cycle in September 2021. Each week, the greeting changed to correspond with each phase. The participants experienced listening via calling the instructed phone number on the evenings of the four moon phases during the cycle.
Learn more about the project HERE:
https://www.akarikomura.com/moongreeting

Moon Greeting

Three Songs of Venice: No. 2 "St. Mark's Square" - Michael Head

Mezzo-Soprano: Akari Komura
Piano: Yuliya Minina

Three Poems No. 1 Vorfruling - Anton Webern

Composer: Gustav Mahler
Mezzo-Soprano: Akari Komura

Frulingsmorgen - Gustav Mahler

Premiered on July 7, 2018 at Atlantic Music Festival 2018, Colby College, Waterville ME 

Dean Whiteside, Conductor
Emma Resmini, Flute(doubling Piccolo) 
Jarrett Hoffman, Bb Clarinet(doubling Bass Clarinet)
Anat Kardontchik, Violin
Georgia Bourderionnet, Cello
Zachary Webb, Percussion
Peng-Chian Chen, Piano

How the Sky Holds the Sun(2018) - Akari Komura

Composer: Ernst Bacon
Poet: Emily Dickinson

Mezzo-Soprano: Akari Komura

声と共に

It's all I have to bring - Ernst Bacon

SunWoo Choi, Soprano
Julie Vreman, Clarinet
Andrew Anderson, Piano

For each ecstatic instant(2017) - Akari Komura

Performed at Atlantic Music Festival 2018 

Shaina Pan, Violin
Jacqueline Rasmussen, Piano

Time Traveling Mind(2017) - Akari Komura

Fixed Media Electronics

I collected all my samples inside of a parked still car, and they include fastening/unfastening of the seatbelts, inserting the key, knocking on the window, parking brake, and rain hitting on the roof. After categorizing them, the artistic approach arose from my interests in trying to produce organic human like in contrast to the sound resource, a car, which is a lifeless machine made out of metals and engine. 
The work starts out with mechanical noises, and slowly transforms into heartbeat like sound. I tried to capture a feeling of being inside a womb from around 0’40”, which then shifts into ocean like sound where the watery timbre gradually connects to the actual rain sound on the car roof. The sharp automations of bandpass at the end function to bring sense of cars passing by swiftly, evoking them as the sound source of this entire piece.

Mute the Motion - Akari Komura

Fixed Media Electronics

The piece entirely comprises of voice samples that I recorded during my daily vocal warmup exercises. It includes breathing exercises, humming, buzzing on the /z/ consonant, lip trills, and descending octave yawn-sighs. The aesthetic goal was to create a musical piece out of this everyday routine to prepare my voice from an “incomplete” or “raw” state to a full performance voice.
I was also inspired by Jan Jelinek’s​ John Cage, I've Been Told To Ask You The Following Question, where I wanted to incorporate an element of non-semantic sound particles as he collected from an interview. In this piece, I recorded myself singing through a piece of classical repertoire and cut out all the singing parts to be left with the abrupt sound of inhales between musical phrases. I specifically chose ones that are rapid breaths over a short period of time so that I could create a rhythmic beat. Then, I manipulated EQ to create a timbre that is barely recognizable as human breaths and to transform into a percussive musical timbre.
I also used the application, SPEAR, to transpose my scale exercises up to ranges that are physically impossible to sing for me, but still kept the timbre from the original lower range.

On the breath - Akari Komura

Akari Komura, Mezzo-Soprano
Yuliya Minina, Piano

April 28th, 2019 BA Recital at Winifred Smith Hall, UC Irvine

To A Young Girl - Ned Rorem

Four Dickinson Songs: No.2 I'm Nobody - Lori Laitman

Love After 1950: No.3 Big Sister Says, 1967 - Libby Larsen

Akari Komura, Mezzo-Soprano
Elva Tang, Flute
Yuri Stickney, Piano

Music Once Again (2018) - Akari Komura

Akari Komura, Mezzo-soprano
Blake Harrison-Lane, Violin

The Phrases Of The Moon (2019)

Socially Distant Art: Mail Art Exchange
Composed in response to Patricia Kalidonis's postcard artwork.

A piece of paper, a flutter of trees (2020)

Jacob MacKay, Cello
Fixed media audio

Elapsed is a duet for solo cello with the fixed media electronics, which overlays a pre-recorded audio of the same piece played in reverse. This results in a palindrome-like structure where the two parts are moving across each other in time. The midpoint of the piece unfolds into a powerful unison moment for both the live performer and the track as they sonically mirror each other in reflection. The work explores various timbres of the solo instrument, which emerge in conversation with the transformed timbres of the same musical materials in the reverse track. Elapsed centers around the idea of sonic memory, misremembering, and re-emergence of the past, and challenges to listen to the time that flows in two directions sonically.


Premiered at 2020 Virtual Composers Conference
August 8, 2020

Elapsed (2020)

Japanese composer-vocalist 
Tokyo, Japan -> Jakarta, Indonesia -> Tokyo, Japan -> Irvine, CA -> Ann Arbor, MI -> San Diego, CA

akarikomura

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