Study Score: http://www.editiongravis.de/verlag/product_info.php?info=p1918_Tramespace-I.html

Asko|Schönberg Ensemble
Clark Rundell, cond.

Geertekerk, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Gaudeamus Muziekweek 2013, Opening Concert
September 2, 2013

Live recording made by Richard de Gruyl for Concertzender/VPRO during Gaudeamus Muziekweek 2013

=========
Tramespace is a hybrid word composed of two French words, “trame” (woof, or weft in English), meaning the crosswise threads on a loom over and under which other threads (the warp) are passed to make cloth, and “espace” (meaning space). The metaphorical loom is a context from which the musical materials are woven. Just as each thread is carefully placed and integrated to create a textile, each sound gesture, each musical impulse is threaded with precise intention. As the musical filaments are carefully interlaced – heterogenous, yet collaborating to become one – the surface becomes rich with patterns while depth is made by the multitude of interacting strands. At times, the weave is loosened and a thread becomes entangled, exposing the threads as merely threads just momentarily and no longer as fabric, shifting perspective and seeing things anew, even altered once the yarn becomes rejoined.

In tandem, the concept of space and its elusive quality is something Onishi became interested in during conversations with close friend, composer Mahir Cetiz, most notably regarding the “compositional space” in his work, Départ dans… As space is inexorably tied with time, with an elapsing sense of immediacy and memory, the awareness of physical and metaphysical space is fluid. As music passes with time, it fills a space, interacts with it and leaves it. It makes you aware of the room you are sitting in, yet your sense of inner space has expanded limitlessly. For Onishi, “…it lingers to the territory of the unknown…” and for him, this piece “is, in a sense, an attempt to circumscribe this metaphysical space using the sound that is developed over time.” His work is also informed in part from the philosophical discussion of “self” that is put in the context of the world as a space by Japanese philosopher Shizuteru Ueda in his “Two-Fold Being-in-the-World.”

Tramespace I was commissioned by Gaudeamus Muziekweek as a result of receiving the Gaudeamus Prize in 2011. Tramespace II, still a work in progress, is commissioned by Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris.

Tramespace I and II can be played separately, although playing them together forms a coherent whole as a diptych.

- Program notes by Michelle Lou

Tramespace I (2012-13)

Quatuor Diotima
Yun-Peng Zhao, Constance Ronzatti, violin 
Franck Chevalier, viola
Pierre Morlet, violoncello
    
Recorded on February 22, 2020
Sinquefield Music Center, University of Missouri-Columbia
Recording by David Myers; Edited, mixed and mastered by Yoshiaki Onishi

=======

“History really is a ‘process without a Subject or Goal(s)’… History therefore does not have a subject, in the philosophical sense of the term, but a motor…” – Louis Althusser, Remark on the Category: “Process without a Subject or Goal(s)” in Reply to John Lewis (1973)

Over the past decade, I have become interested in transforming identities of instruments over time; for example, I may assign a bass instrument to play nothing but high pitches—higher than some of the soprano instruments—causing cognitive dissonance. My interest in instrumental identities has become more pronounced with my recent experience of living in Japan for two years where, having lived in the United States for nearly twenty years, I experienced a reverse culture shock, a kind of struggle others in Japan could not easily see or understand because I, after all, appeared just like them, and the cultural code there obliged specific kinds of manners. In my Second String Quartet, my initial interest was to cause senses of heterogeneity within the homogeneous instrumental formation by highlighting a distinct instrumental identity as demonstrated by each of the four instruments. That element is still there; however, ever since I came across the aforementioned passage by Althusser, I could not help but think more about how such a homogeneous-heterogeneous relationship would be perceived in the context of a piece of music. Whether to believe in Althusser’s writing or not, what I sense from his passage is the deliberate distancing from progress as the necessary factor in the unfolding of time. In this “Original Version” of the String Quartet, I reflected on Althusser’s notion by drastically slowing the speed of musical materials’ development, and unfolding the music in a spiral manner where, in each iteration, there are phenomena that remain identical, but also there are things that subtly change. Or such changes might not be perceivable at all. String Quartet No. 2 is written for Quatuor Diotima in my deep gratitude for a decade-long friendship. This piece was made possible by a grant from the Fromm Music Foundation.

String Quartet No. 2 (2019-20), original version

Note: video footage of this performance can be viewed here: https://vimeo.com/89395213

Nieuw Ensemble
Yoshiaki Onishi, cond.

An Evening of Today II
January 16, 2014
Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Départ dans... (2010, rev. 2013)

Score: http://www.editiongravis.de/verlag/product_info.php?language=en&info=p1903_Tr--epilogue-.html

Recording of the new, definitive version

Kevin McFarland, violoncello
Ryan Streber, recording engineer

Columbia Composers Concert
Cary Hall, DiMenna Center (New York)
April 14, 2014
======
When I wrote my Culs-de-sac (en passacaille) for string quartet in 2009, it was evident to me that I should develop the sonic soundscape that I have created in that piece. I have decided that I write a cycle of compositions for string quartet and its subsets.

Tr (épilogue) marks the second piece that I completed in this cycle. Its title has a precursor; Tr for violoncello and piano, of which I took the formal scheme as a point of reference for the solo piece. I took the duo piece, stripped away the piano part, and enlarged the piece by adding musical commentaries.

As the title may suggest, I intend that this piece conclude the cycle. In the spirit of concluding the cycle, my focus in this piece was to illuminate the gestures and situations of ‘farewell,’ in the sense that the envelope of the phrases has the conscious trajectory of fade-out.

Many thanks to Patrick McGuire who, in the symposium Creative Dialogue V, premièred the work-in-progress version as a part of Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Also thanks are due to Anssi Karttunen and Magnus Lindberg, whose commentaries and feedbacks were crucial to the development of the piece. For the revised version, a rather extended coda (Coda (à Séverine)) was added. I am indebted to Séverine Ballon, who kindly demonstrated a technique utilized in this coda.

Tr (épilogue) is dedicated to Pierre Morlet and Mark Andre.

- Yoshiaki Onishi

Tr (épilogue) - for violoncello solo (2012, rev. 2014)

[Listening with a good pair of headphones strongly recommended]

Mizzou New Music Ensemble
Yoshiaki Onishi, cond.

Recorded on February 19, 2021
Columbia, Missouri, United States

Recorded by David Myers
Edited, mixed, and mastered by Santiago Beis

===
I: L'antienne acoustique 1
II: Mouvements
III: L'antienne acoustique 2

Antefenas is a spelling variant of an Old English word, antefn, meaning an “antiphon,” “anthem,” or a “hymn song sung in alternate parts.” No religious connotation is intended in this piece; however, throughout the piece I focus on the physicality of alternating sounds. In particular, I am interested in the kinetics of one sound responding to another, eventually forming the perception of a dialogue. Throughout the piece, dialogue is implied in various ways.

In the first part, L’antienne acoustique I (The acoustic dialogue I), an exchange between real and virtual acoustics takes place: the live musicians play short sounds through their instruments that would highlight the acoustics of the room or the hall where the piece is being played. The electronic part responds to these live instrumental sounds with sounds that are passed through impulse responses, artificially generated reverberations that simulate a “virtual” room. In the second part, Mouvements (movements), the electronic part is absent, and the focus is on the activities on the instrumental parts. “Movements” here refer not only to the fast passages that dominate this part, but also to the movements of the sounds that are exchanged from one instrumental group to another. The last part, L’antienne acoustique II, is essentially an inverse of the first part, where the live instrumental parts simulate the acoustics that the electronics produced in L’antienne acoustique I by producing the airy and hissing sounds that quickly decay in volume. The electronic part predominantly produces sounds with dry acoustics. New to the revised version, fast delays are added to the electronic sounds that bounce off left and right. Such sounds are put together with the live instrumental sounds to create a more immersive experience. The electronic part also plays a series of bell-like chords, which come from the residues of compositional materials that did not make their ways into the second part, Mouvements. I think of them as a signifier of the irreconcilable past. I find them particularly poignant, considering how turbulent the world has been for the past few years. Indeed, working on a now two-year-old piece makes the passing of time so visceral and palpable.

Antefenas-Studies was commissioned by and written for University of the Pacific’s 28/78 New Music Ensemble and Andrew Lu, in partnership with the Conservatory of Music. I dedicate this piece to Robert Coburn, in gratitude for introducing me to the world of Max/MSP while I was an undergraduate at the university, which has proven essential for creating the electronics component of this piece.

Antefenas-Studies, for ensemble and electronics (2018/21) [New Recording]

T.J. Borden, violoncello
Whitmore Recital Hall, University of Missouri-Columbia
T.J. Borden Cello Recital
04/10/2019
=====
When I wrote my string quartet Culs-de-sac (en passacaille) in 2009, it was evident to me that I should develop the sonic soundscape that I have created in that piece. I have decided that I write a cycle of compositions for string quartet and its subsets. Tr (épilogue) marks the second piece that I completed in this cycle. Its title has a precursor; Tr for violoncello and piano, of which I took the formal scheme as a point of reference for the solo piece. I took the duo piece, stripped away the piano part, and enlarged the piece by adding musical commentaries. As the title may suggest, I intend that this piece concludes the cycle. In the spirit of concluding the cycle, my focus in this piece was to illuminate the gestures of ‘farewell,’ in the sense that the envelope of the phrases has the conscious trajectory of fade-out. Many thanks to Patrick McGuire who, in the symposium Creative Dialogue V, premiered the work-in-progress version as a part of Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Also thanks are due to Anssi Karttunen and Magnus Lindberg, whose commentaries and feedbacks were crucial to the development of the piece. Tr (épilogue) is dedicated to Pierre Morlet and Mark Andre.

Tr (épilogue) (2012/14)

Yoshiaki Onishi, bass clarinet
Santiago Beis, saxophone, accordion, and piano

Recorded on July 6, 2023
Recording Engineer: David Myers (Hitt Street Studio, Columbia, Missouri)
Mixed and mastered by Santiago Beis and Yoshiaki Onishi

Before leaving Columbia, Missouri, in July 2023, we recorded our album, Inner//Outer. After relocating to the East Coast (Beis in New York, Onishi in Delaware), we took time to master the recordings. Our debut album, Images-After, was released in November 2023, featuring improvisations blending instrumental sounds with excerpts from Zen Kōans. Reflecting on this, we decided to explore different ways of improvising in this album. For example, we dispensed with live electronics in order to allow ourselves to delve deeper into the acoustical properties of each other's playing. The eight tracks from our June 2023 sessions are presented without a specific order, allowing listeners to experience them as they choose. The album's title, "Inner//Outer," reflects our shared interest in exploring the boundary between inside and outside, rather than individual feelings towards it.

– Yoshiaki Onishi and Santiago Beis linktr.ee/onishibeisduo

© All rights reserved

s.u.i.t.e.

pn. bcl. III

bcl.

bcl. sx.

separate together

pn. bcl. II

pn. bcl. I

acc. bcl.

NOTE: The work "Tramespace" as a diptych has not yet been performed, but the two works that make up the diptych have now been performed. I have put the two recordings together, so as to form an impression of the diptych. 

Many excuses for the drop in the quality of the sound recording in "Tramespace II," as the sound becomes monophonic.
==========
0:00~15:12: Tramespace I (2012~2013)
15:12~32:58: Tramespace II (2013~2015)
==========
Tramespace I:
Study Score: https://www.editiongravis.de/verlag/product_info.php?info=p1918_Tramespace-I.html

Asko|Schönberg Ensemble
Clark Rundell, cond.

Geertekerk, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Gaudeamus Muziekweek 2013, Opening Concert
September 2, 2013

Live recording made by Richard de Gruyl for Concertzender/VPRO during Gaudeamus Muziekweek 2013
==========
Tramespace II:
Study Score: https://www.editiongravis.de/verlag/product_info.php?info=p2065_Tramespace-II.html

Ensemble Intercontemporain
Pablo Heras-Casado, cond.

Kölner Philharmonie, Köln (Cologne), Germany
Acht Brücken 2015
May 9, 2015

Tramespace, diptych for large ensemble (2012~2015)

Tosiya Suzuki, recorder
Tadashi Tajima, shakuhachi

March 25, 2017
Yodobashi Church, Tokyo, Japan
Recorded live and mastered by Yoshiaki Onishi

Gz is an abbreviation of Gestaltzerfall, or “shape decomposition,” a psychological phenomenon where one experiences a temporary loss of the ability to recognize certain letters, particularly often experienced in Japanese Kanjis, or Chinese characters. The elements of loss, uncertainty, and doubt are the underlying motivations for composing this work.

Named after Rumanian mathematician Dan Tudor Vuza who researched it extensively, a Vuza canon is a rhythmic, tiling canon with some peculiar musical properties. Even at the maximal density of the canon where all the voices are playing, the overall perception is a continuous flow of the basic pulse unit (in this piece, it is an eighth-note). Furthermore, at that moment, each “pulsation” is enunciated by only one voice. In other words, when one voice is enunciating, the other voices are absent. The end result is something similar to a hocket.

While this piece does start as a 12-part Vuza canon compressed into two voices, its canonic structure becomes distorted little by little, and toward the end of the work, all dissolves into layers of breath sounds.

Commissioned by Tosiya Suzuki, Gz is dedicated to Tosiya Suzuki, Tadashi Tajima who premièred this work, and to Fabien Lévy, who introduced me to the fascinating world of the Vuza canons.

Gz - A Vuza Canon for tenor recorder and shakuhachi (2017)

Kei Yamazawa, Violoncello

Recorded live on April 13, 2017
Tiara Koto, Tokyo, Japan

Recording mastered by Yoshiaki Onishi

Written from August to October of 2015 as part of "Five Dialogues," project initiated by Anssi Karttunen, this work is dedicated to him. This work utlizes the clothespins attached to the strings, and this technique was first shown to me by Theresa Wong, composer and cellist while we were in the residency at Civitella Ranieri Foundation together. The "prepared sound" from this technique plays an important role in the development of the musical materials in this piece. Furthermore, the fact that the tuning of the instrument being identical to that of the Fifth Cello Suite by Johann Sebastian Bach is a way for me to pay tribute to the masterpiece; there is also a passage from the Sarabande of the Suite, encrypted and hidden within the piece.

Envoi I - for violoncello solo (2015)

Momenta Quartet
(Alex Shiozaki, violin; Stephanie Griffin, viola;  Michael Haas, violoncello)
February 19, 2017
Scandinavia House, New York

Remastered by Yoshiaki Onishi

Score: https://www.editiongravis.de/verlag/product_info.php?info=p2213_Envoi-II.html
Parts: https://www.editiongravis.de/verlag/product_info.php?info=p2278_Envoi-II.html

============
Commissioned by Music From Japan (New York).

When I wrote my Culs-de-sac (en passacaille) for string quartet in 2009, it was evident to me that I should develop the sonic soundscape that I have created in that piece. I have decided that I write Les six aspects du néant, a cycle of compositions for string quartet and its subsets.

Envoi II marks the fourth piece that I completed in this cycle. Envoi is another series of pieces I have been working on since 2015. In this piece, these two cycles intersect in their compositional and affective senses.

This piece relates itself to the cycle Les six aspects du néant, for its compositional materials are taken from the pieces within that cycle that I have already written. These materials have been then worked out once again in order to compose this piece.

In its literary sense, an envoi (or envoy) is an author’s concluding words, or a short stanza that concludes a ballade. In modern French, it is a word frequently used to denote the action of “sending off” (packages or letters) or simply “sending” (one’s best wishes, etc.). While its author is specific, the recipient could be, depending on the context, open-ended. It may be to someone alive, or it may be to a fictional character, or someone deceased.

As I started to write this piece, I received the news that James Deitz, percussionist whom I have been privileged to know since my time during the graduate studies at Yale University, departed from this world. This piece is dedicated to his memory.

Many thanks are due to Prof. Fuyuko Fukunaka, musicologist at Tokyo University of the Arts who extended the opportunity to write this work for the Music From Japan Festival 2017, Mr. Naoyuki Miura and Ms. Mari Ono, organizers of Music From Japan (New York), and the members of Momenta Quartet.

- Yoshiaki Onishi

Envoi II - for string trio (2016)

(British premiere)

Linda Jankowska, violin
University of Huddersfield (Huddersfield, England)
September 15, 2017

Parti… for violin solo (2012~14, rev. 2015)

Sean Katsuyama, violoncello
Mahir Cetiz, piano

Bryan Jacobs, Recording Engineer

Tr - for violoncello and piano (2011, rev. 2012)

Culs-de-sac (en passacaille) (2009, rev. 2010)
JACK Quartet
Recorded July 23, 2010
Orangerie, Darmstadt, Germany
Internationale Ferienkurse für neue Musik Darmstadt
========
Culs-de-sac (en passacaille), written between the fall of 2008 and early 2009, was the first piece I completed after I started my doctoral residency at Columbia University.  Working on this piece initially plunged me into a bit of a crisis, because of the enormous historical weight that the instrumental medium, string quartet, possessed.  Composing this piece was a moment in my life as a composer in which I had to reconsider, from ground-up, what it meant to write for each of the instruments.  This process of reconsideration would soon have a tremendous impact for me to arrive at the question of my “being” as a composer.  Thus the title "Culs-de-sac," or multiple impasses, is a metaphor for the crisis.  

Passacaille, or passacaglia, is a musical form in which there are series of variations on the same ground bass.  Here, I took the term more liberally, and it is attributed to the notion of a metrical scheme that recurs throughout the piece.  The perception of such a metrical scheme is obscure, even futile; nevertheless, it still suggests something, perhaps the imagery of "something unseen/unheard is going on behind the curtain."

Therefore, the title as a whole suggests a kind of recurrent attempts to break away from the crisis or to make a dialectical turn from the crisis in order for a new beginning to emerge.

This work was written for JACK Quartet, and dedicated to the 65th birthday of my father, Shinzō Onishi.  Also, this forms one of the six works of the cycle written for string quartet and its subsets, entitled: "Les Six Aspects du Néant" (The Six Aspects of Nothingness).

- Yoshiaki Onishi

Culs-de-sac (en passacaille) (2009, rev. 2010)

28/78 New Music Ensemble
	Andrew Lu, flute
	Scott Pastor, clarinet
	Thomas Hubel, trumpet
	Joshua Dunsford, trombone
	Tyler Golding, percussion
	Diego Bustamante, piano
	Sabrina Boggs and Micah Vogel, violins
	Anne Plescia, viola
	Malcolm King, violoncello
	Tristen Collinsworth, electronics

Yoshiaki Onishi, cond. 

February 2, 2019
Stockton, California, United States

28/78 New Music Festival
Conservatory of Music, University of the Pacific

Live Recording by Jeffrey D. Crawford (Owen Hall Recording & Video Studio)
Remastered by the composer

===
I: L'antienne acoustique 1
II: Mouvements
III: L'antienne acoustique 2
===
Antefenas is a spelling variant of an Old English word, antefn, meaning an “antiphon,” “anthem,” or a “hymn song sung in alternate parts.” No religious connotation is intended in this piece; however, throughout the piece I focus on the physicality of alternating sounds. In particular, I am interested in the kinetics of one sound responding to another, eventually forming the perception of a dialogue. Throughout the piece, dialogue is implied in various ways.

In the first part, L’antienne acoustique I (The acoustic dialogue I), an exchange between real and virtual acoustics takes place: the live musicians play short sounds through their instruments that would highlight the acoustics of the room or the hall where the piece is being played. The electronic part responds to these live instrumental sounds with sounds that are passed through impulse responses, artificially generated reverberations that simulate a “virtual” room. In the second part, Mouvements (movements), the electronic part is absent, and the focus is on the activities on the instrumental parts. “Movements” here refer not only to the fast passages that dominate this part, but also to the movements of the sounds that are exchanged from one instrumental group to another. The last part, L’antienne acoustique II, is essentially an inverse of the first part, where the live instrumental parts simulate the acoustics that the electronics produced in L’antienne acoustique I by producing the airy and hissing sounds that quickly decay in volume. The electronic part predominantly produces sounds with dry acoustics. New to the revised version, fast delays are added to the electronic sounds that bounce off left and right. Such sounds are put together with the live instrumental sounds to create a more immersive experience. The electronic part also plays a series of bell-like chords, which come from the residues of compositional materials that did not make their ways into the second part, Mouvements. I think of them as a signifier of the irreconcilable past. I find them particularly poignant, considering how turbulent the world has been for the past few years. Indeed, working on a now two-year-old piece makes the passing of time so visceral and palpable.

Antefenas-Studies was commissioned by and written for University of the Pacific’s 28/78 New Music Ensemble and Andrew Lu, in partnership with the Conservatory of Music. I dedicate this piece to Robert Coburn, in gratitude for introducing me to the world of Max/MSP while I was an undergraduate at the university, which has proven essential for creating the electronics component of this piece.

  --- Yoshiaki Onishi

Antefenas-Studies, for ensemble and electronics (2018)

Lost Geometry (2006)
for wind ensemble of 41 players

Yale Philharmonia Wind Ensemble
Yoshiaki Onishi, conductor
November 2, 2006

Lost Geometry (2006)

Repository of music by Yoshiaki Onishi, to be used for streaming on Soundcloud as well as Onishi's website (www.yoshionishi.com)

Travelogue (2004) - I

Travelogue (2004) - II

Yoshiaki Onishi
Spargens (2012)
for trombone solo
Score here: http://www.editiongravis.de/verlag/product_info.php?info=p1902_Spargens.html

William Lang, trombone

December 12, 2012
Roulette (Brooklyn, New York)
Columbia Composers Concert

Spargens was commissioned by trombonist William Lang. Its title, “spargens,” is a Latin word meaning “scattering.” It is a piece about a musical continuity being affected by various interferences, thereby creating paradoxically scattered sonic images out of such continuous musical gestures.

Many thanks are due to George Lewis for his initial inspirational remarks on trombone writing at the time I started to work on this piece. Also many thanks to the Civitella Ranieri Center in Umbertide, Italy, where the creative process on this piece truly blossomed.


Spargens - for trombone solo (2012)

Field Recording of a nightingale (h/t to Tom Sistermans) in June 2012 in Umbria, Italy.

This was recorded around midnight.  Surely the bird must've been drinking some strong espresso...or something.

Nightingale around midnight

Listening with headphones strongly recommended. 

Created with Reaper as part of the "Introduction to Electronic Music" class I teach at the University of Missouri. One single sound source—a few strings playing col legno battuto. It undergoes the delay in 7 taps, of which I control the durations. It also undergoes changes in panning.

Bagatelle 1 (2021)

Yoshiaki Onishi is a Japanese-American composer, conductor, and clarinetist. As a composer, he is interested in exploring a wide range of instrumental timbres and finding ways to incorporate them in musical syntaxes and forms that disrupt the sense of expectation. He has worked on commissions that have come from such festivals and organizations as Klangwerkstatt Berlin, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Takefu International Music Festival, and Gaudeamus Muziekweek, and his music has been performed by ensembles worldwide, including New Japan Philharmonic, Asko|Schönberg Ensemble, Klangforum Wien, Nieuw Ensemble, Distractfold Ensemble, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Quatuor Diotima and JACK Quartet. He is the recipient of the 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship, the 2018 Fromm Commission, and the Gaudeamus Prize 2011. Edition Gravis in Berlin, Germany publishes his music. As a conductor deeply engaged in promoting the music of today, he is Co-Director for the Mizzou New Music Ensemble and was one of the founding members of Ensemble Exophonie Tokyo. Other ensembles he has worked with as a conductor include Nieuw Ensemble of Amsterdam, ECCE Ensemble, Wet Ink Ensemble, Columbia University Orchestra and the University Philharmonic Orchestra of the University of Missouri. Increasingly active as a clarinetist and improviser, he has collaborated with composers George Lewis, Carolina Heredia, Oswald Huỳnh, Bret Bohman, and Andrew Crossley. Together with Santiago Beis, he plays in the Onishi-Beis Duo, an electroacoustic improvisation duo. Onishi received his doctorate in music composition from Columbia University in 2015. He is currently Assistant Professor of Music Composition at the University of Delaware School of Music. 

Profile Photo © 2015 by Stefaren.

Popular tracks by Yoshiaki Onishi