Mash-up tape!

A short piece for contrabass clarinet
Contrabass clarinet: Alvaro Zegers

Schnellzug (2016/rev.2020)

Beyond the eternal chaos was composed at die Kunstuniversität Graz in Austria in 2014. This piece was inspired by transformative phenomena between one and another. The inspiration is reflected to several levels of the piece such as changes of a prominence between the flute and electronics dependent on sections, transition between noise and tone in a phrase and so on. Such transformations are concreted by interpolation algorithms.
The composition is divided into three sections. The first section renders a convergent process of three musical elements characterized by wavering motions between tone and noise, sustained tones with portamento and a melody outlined by tongue rams as well as lip slaps, respectively. The second section portrays a scene that electronics dominate prominently than the instrument. The third section draws a transformative development from a melody to an ascending passage. At the end, the piece finishes as if disappearing into chaos by echoes.

Beyond the eternal chaos for flute and electronics (2014)

Flashback was realized at Sonology Department at Kunitachi College of Music in 2006, and revised in 2013.
The concept of the piece is to render aural experiences of a fetus in a womb. Various types of sonic events such as sounds of amniotic fluid, heartbeats, sounds of bone and voices of persons are used as main motifs of the piece.

Flashback for fixed medium (2006)

2/2(Two over two) was composed for a bass clarinet and a computer in 2008. A computer manipulator plays both the electronics part and the recorded bass clarinet part in time to a performance by the instrumental player.

2/2 for bass clarinet and electronics (2008)

This piece was composed for fixed media played on an 8 channel speaker system at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague in The Netherlands in 2010. The main concept of this piece is the replacement of an abstract still-life drawing by Pablo Picasso, into music through fragmentizing and then reconstructing the object starting with a multiperspective view. The compositional principle to construct a piece only from recorded samples of sounds played on musical instruments, was derived from the drawing process; a fragmentization and a reconstruction. Concretely, several double bass effects such as Collegno, Bartok pizzicato, Harmonics and Sulponticello, were utilized to synthesize characteristic material such as deep resonance,diverse timbres and gesture of sounds. Then, all this material was categorized according to the degree of concreteness vs. abstraction by applying several generative means. They were then classified functionally as either foreground, for which the materials were defined as “main”, or background. Material with either function was sometimes transfigured into other material through the application of interpolation techniques.

Still-life of cb. for fixed medium (2010)

This piece was composed as an octaphonic tape composition in 2010.
It can be interpreted as a representation of the trajectory of a falling satellite. The narrative is that the orbital satellite gradually goes out of orbit and falls to earth by gravitation. So, the time structure consists of intervals between sound events, which have attacks and movements of crescendo - decrescendo and accelerando - ritardando combined, becoming shorter and shorter towards the crash point.
All sound events and the time structure were realized by a single bell sound and an object- oriented controller which consists of a main sequencer, sub-sequencers and sound generators. The main sequencer decides where a sound object is put in the time dimension and it also decides the property of sound objects such as occurring intervals, scene numbers for behavior etc... The sub-sequencers, which are present in each sound object, were manipulated by the main sequencer. The sub-sequencer functions to parameterize several behaviors of a sound object such as the above-mentioned movements as well as fundamental notes, pitch register, degree of randomization, envelope etc. For the sound generation, all sound objects have a few granular synthesizers connected to the main-and sub-controllers.

Satellite for fixed medium (2010)

Centrifugal melodies was commissioned by Vertixe Sonora Ensemble, and composed at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz in Austria in 2014. This piece is inspired by centrifugal force caused by cyclic motions. From the idea of centrifugal force the basic structures of the 2 dimensions of this composition are derived: fluctuations of musical tension, and emergences of melodies.
The fluctuation of musical tension is associated with changes of centrifugal force in dependence of the speed of rotation. In imitation of irregular changes of centrifugal force, the musical tension oscillates between higher and lower intensities, while three types of melodies and few types of phrases are introduced.
The emergence of melodies is designed in analogy to the visual image of an object revolving in space,where the different sides repeat to come into and out of view. Eventually the four types of melodies vanish during the course of the piece. Toward the end, the tension of the piece gradually raises in accordance to the intensified centrifugal force during an acceleration of the cyclic motion.

Centrifugal melodies for flute, violin, harp and electronics(Live)(2014)

Constellation was composed for MicroEnsemble(Finland), in which all instruments are designed to produce quarter-tones, in 2015.
This piece explores quarter-tone pitch intervals. The quarter-tone pitch intervals are used as an essential pitch interval in a scale, from which harmonic, melodic and micro-polyphonic elements in this piece are derived.
This piece can be divided into three parts; harmonic part, solo part and non-metric part. The harmonic part aims to make an audience get used to the microtones, and so, introduces, first, a microtonal scale in descending passages, then, chords, in which microtonal pitch intervals include. The solo part focuses more on timbres and gestures of the instruments rather than the microtonal pitch interval in contrast to the other parts. The non-metric part constitutes a motion of the alternation between ritardando and accelerando and also a micro-polyphonic passage, whose pitches are chosen from a microtonal scale. All parts are successively performed.

Constellation for quarter-tone ensemble (2015)

This piece was dedicated to the maestro Alexis Hauser and McGill Symphony Orchestra.

Convergence for orchestra (2019)

Assimilation was composed for a contrabass and a computer at die Kunstuniversität Graz in Austria in 2013.
It is an attempt to make organic relationships between three elements characterized by different quality of motions and of timbres; exploding attack - blaze, monotonous succession - monotone, and metallic harmony - bright.
Various modes of correspondence between these three types of motions/timbres are explored during the course of the piece. Gradually they develop interdependently to a climax. At the end of the piece they are converged to a single stream through a superimposition of the different types of motions/timbres.
This piece was awarded a third prize at International Taiwan Electroacoustic Music Award(Taiwan).

Assimilation for contrabass and electronics (2013)

Takuto Fukuda(b.1984/Japan) is a composer, sound artist and gestural controller performer. How can music alleviate intercultural collisions today? This question awakened him to the social significance of the concert, which provides a shared musical experience to all audience members regardless of race, religion and nationality. In the hope of attracting more people to the concert, he has been researching the enhancement of liveness–attributes that make music live such as spontaneity, corporeality and interactivity. His approaches encompass, among others, gestural control of music, interactive audiovisual installations and Game Pieces – compositions whose unfolding is determined in real-time according to rules, chance operations and competitive strifes between performing opponents toward a goal.

His pieces have been prized at several competitions such as ICU International Composers Contest(Ukraine), AndrewSvoboda Memorial Prize(Canada), ISMIR2020(Canada), IEMC2020(China), WOCMAT 2013(Taiwan), CCMC2011(Japan), and Musica Nova 2010(Czech), selected for performance at numerous music festivals in Europe, Asia, North and South America such as Ars Electronica(Austria), ISCM World Music Days 2016(Korea) andICMCs(Slovenia, Greece, USA), and performed at prestigious institutes such as IRCAM(France), ZKM(Germany),ina-GRM(France), CIRMMT(Canada) and CCRMA(USA).

He received his first MA(Sonology/2011) from The Royal Conservatory in The Hague in The Netherlands and his second MA(Computer Music/2016) from the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz in Austria. He has completed his D.Mus in composition at McGill University in Canada with Chris Paul Harman, Georgia Spiropoulos and Sean Ferguson.

He has attended private lessons with outstanding composers such as Philippe Leroux, Philippe Manoury, IsabelMundry, Beat Furrer and Chaya Czernowin at various composition academies such as Matrix Academy(Germany), Impuls Academy(Austria) and Manifeste 2016(France).

Takuto Fukuda

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