On Friday June 14, 2013 an extraordinary concert took place in Berkeley. The featured artist was Natori Japanese Koto Master Shoko Hikage who was joined by Narae Kwon, on the Korean zither called Kayageum and Thomas Schultz on Piano. It took place in the intimate setting of the Garden Gate Creativity Center in the heart of Berkeley’s Claremont district.

The evening was a portrait concert celebrating the music of renown Bay Area Composer Hyo-Shin Na. Holding a doctorate from the University of Colorado, Hyo-shin Na moved to San Francisco in 1988 where she met Cage, Rzewski, Wolff, Takahashi and encountered the music of Nancarrow.

Hyo-shin Na has written for Western instruments, for Korean instruments and music that combines Western and Asian instruments and ways of playing. Hyo-shin Na has twice been awarded the Korean National Composers Prize and has been widely commissioned.

The concert in Berkeley began with “Night Procession of the Hundred Demons” a composition inspired by the 18th century scroll of the same name by the Japanese painter Toriyama Sekien. Composer Hyo-shin Na was inspired by the wildness and imagination of the painting and thus composed the work based on it. It was skillfully played by Sensei Shoko Hikage on the Japanese koto.

The concert continued with “Koto Music” (2011) of which the composer states “The materials used in this piece are very limited, and there is no development of these materials” . The limited materials were used to good effect and was remenicent of minimalist composers like Glass and Riley. A repeating tone in the middle voicing was the springboard in which motives on higher and lower strings bounced off.

The next piece in the concert “Song of the Firewood” (2010) was a rare treat. A musical delicacy seldom savored: a performance on the rare twenty-five string Kayageum! The Korean kayageum normally has 12 strings and is itself a rarity in the West, but the twenty-five string kayageum is largely unheard. Fortunately, the instrument was brought to the forefront in this portrait concert.

It was deftly played by the gifted Narae Kwon and featured a unique microtonal scale developed by the composer and frought with quarter and one-third sharp tones. Though unfamiliar, its sound was very listenable, a delight to the ears.

“Song of the Firewood” was inspired by a poem by Jaime de Angulo (1887-1950) who was a linguist, poet, and musicologist. The poem reads:

“I am old, twisted, dry. I am cold.
Build the fire.
Heh! heeh-heh. . . he-he-he . . . feel good.
Let the chief call the dancers.”

Like the poetry it inspired Hyo-shin Na’s music started out cold and controlled like wood just begun to kindle and progressively became more out of control as the blaze took shape. One could easily imagine the dancers around the blazing fire as full twenty-five string double-forte sweeps of the kayageum’s strings sent the blaze higher and higher.

The first half concluded with “Five Pieces on Yoshie Hikage’s Poems” (2012-2013). Based on poetry by Shoko Hikage’s mother in her collection of poetry called For the Pink Dianthus. The music had a melancholy feel at times a mood which matched the text well. The poetry was written after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami and this theme runs throughout.

The second half of the concert started on a different note and featured the solo piano of Stanford faculty member Thomas Schultz who played two compositions “Near and Dear” (2012) and“Variations” (1990).

The concert concluded with “Chrysanthemum Song” (2012) inspired by a poem by Japanese poet Kaen (1697-1772) and “Echoes of Harmonious Music” (2012) for twelve string kayageum and thirteen string koto. Both pieces were highly significant. The composer brought two very diverse playing traditions together and made them work together seamlessly. Although the Korean kayageum and Japanese koto are both classified as “zithers” the playing style and technique are very different.

In the program notes composer Hyo-shin Na explains: “Echoes of Harmonious Music“, “is written as a quasi-unison piece where the two instruments follow their own nature (kayageum tends to play music in a triple meter whereas koto almost always plays in a duple rhythm; lavish ornamentation is the norm for a kayageum player and almost anathema for the player of the koto) as well as the path of the piece’s melody.”

The compositions worked and the musicians played well together. It sounded like the instruments had always been meant to play together and now they had a vehicle to do so: the music of Hyo-shin Na.

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