During several months of 2009, I composed a piano piece called "We will meet again"; as the title suggests, the piece deals with sad memories, loss, people that have died and that I can't meet again. It is hard to tell much about the work, because these months were a difficult time for me. Perhaps the title also might remind one of Bill Evans, one of the few musicians I really liked to listen to at that time. Anyway, the piece will be performed for the first time at September 25th 2010 by the pianist Satoko Inoue in the Monnaka Tenjou Hall, Tokyo. (Please see "Events".) In October 2009, I had concerts and lectures in the USA; in February, my new CD was recorded. I would have liked to stay with my memories, but time goes on. And I decided to turn to my opera project that now has slept for about ten years now. The story - as explained in more detail elsewhere on my home page ﾐ is based on the famous "Snow Queen" by Andersen, i.e. a girl named Gerda goes on a journey to look for her friend Kai who has been kind of abducted by the Snow Queen, and on the journey she meets all kinds of people and animals and, growing through these experiences, finally finds her true way (and Kai too, according to Andersen). The story leaves much room for interpretation and might even be read as a the description of a Shaman's journey, but in the moment, I find the ideas of growth and quest for one's truth quite intriguing. (Perhaps these ideas have been overworked for some time in the past, but today, they seem to become relvant again for me.) At present, I am reworking the second act that I once composed for the synthesizer-heavy ensemble of Chaosma/Hamburg Consort. Not only do I want to get rid of the synthesizers which are impractical for many reasons, but I have also found that my compositional language changed a lot in these years; however, this didn't turn out so much as a stumbling block but rather as an increase in skill and flexibility so that I now feel more poised to have the music go the way I want it to go. The new version of the opera will require a rather normal orchestra. The reworking will in all likelihood last until the beginning of the next year, than I will work with some stage-experienced friends in order to get the libretto straight and hopefully finish the rest of the opera in the not to far future. By the way, the Northshore Saxophone Trio* who recorded several pieces for my new CD gave also a concert at Tokyo, and a video of the concert was made by Mr. Miyamori. Later, Mr. Miyamori edited the video of one of the pieces, "Jungibility", adding footage he filmed while traveling Africa. Two other videos were directly taken from the concert video. Here they are on youtube: Jungibility (piano solo) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwyjqPw8B_U LigAlien I（sop.sax, ten.sax, pno) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sgw0Yonxvy4 LigAlien IV （sop.sax,ten.sax, pno) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gfsqoyl9JM *) The Northshore Saxophone Trio consists of Nathan Nabb Masahito Sugihara Winston Choi Here you can look up their websites: www.nathannabbmusic.com www.mas-sugihara.com www.winstonchoi.com Main Events 2010 January 31st Morehead State University (Kentucky/USA) The Northshore Saxophone Trio* played LigAlien I (2003) (2 saxophones and piano) LigAlien IV (2007/2008) (2 saxophones and piano) Jungibility (2005/2006) (piano solo) February 17th Suginami Kokaido (Small Hall) (Tokyo/Japan) The Northshore Saxophone Trio played LigAlien I (2003) (2 saxophones and piano) LigAlien IV (2007/2008) (2 saxophones and piano) Jungibility (2005/2006) (piano solo) June 3rd St. John's Episcopal Church (Boston/USA) Concert of the Boston New Music Initiative Emily Bieber (sopran) and Maja Tremiszewska (piano) performed "Vacation No Pal" from Two Chansons (1997) July 13th Bunkyo University (Kanagawa/Japan) Mari Takano - Special Lecture "Creative possibilities in musical media" September 25th (Saturday) Monnaka Tenjou Hall (Tokyo/Japan) 19:00 h Music Documents '10 "Various piano pieces - 30 years Irino prize memorial concert" Satoko Inoue (piano) plays the first performance of "We will meet again" (2009) (piano solo) Information www.n-b-music.com By the way, I have decided to start a blog. I'm not sure how much I will be able to write, but if you are interested, please fell free to visit it. http://maricats.exblog.jp/ No part of this homepage may be used for commercial purposes without permission of the composer. ©2010 Mari Takano