Noh Reflection

Interview with a Japanese Composer

Recently Joji Yuasa, a Japanese composer in the contemporary style visited New Zealand on an exchange scheme with the Japanese government. He gave a series of lectures at the university, and Salient reporter Elton June was able to secure the following interview.

Salient: One thing I think we can say about Japanese electronic music is that there's plenty of silence and space as a parallel to the Haiku, Noh drama and brush painting. Has NZ an emerging style?

Yuasa: Yes, there's nature. You have a beautiful country.

S: Asian countries are relatively crowded. Do people come to your music as a breather, to escape . . . ?

Y: A consolation? It's not entertainment. It's more a reflection. It's not what you call getting away from it all. Music might change the people who are interested in listening to contemporary music and to find something new I think . . . rescue.

S:Stockhausen talks about progress and development of the higher mind, e.g. through intuitive playing.

Y: Yes, I'm in complete agreement with Karlheinz. And also John Cage. That openness.

S: Was Cage the originator of noise in music?

Y: Yes, he has had a great influence. Not only on me but on my friends also. But I think John Cage had a big influence from Zen and we have a common bond here.

S: I find the long homogeneous sections of, for example, your very first piece with white noise are very similar to avantegarde jazz and rock. Have you heard of Tangerine Dream?

Y: Yes, actually I heard them in Berlin. But they do it the easy way; The serious avantegarde is not the easy way.

S: Do students listen much to yours or other contemporary music?

Y: Young people do not compose electronic music. Almost no. Generally speaking, music education is quite conservative. Only Schoenberg. Not further. Ravel is quite highly estimated in the university. Teachers are very conservative but nowadays, students are not so content with that way. They have more curiosity than the teachers;

S: Is there much symbolism involved in the gestures?

Y: Yes. For myself the roots of culture are always very important and actually I have an interest in Noh theatre and some other ....

S:Zen? or me, yes. Not so much for others.

S: Is this the result of your training or did you pursue it later on?

Y: This is a very big question. I had to find what was my own way of thinking. For us, there is an equality of the old Japanese way and the European. We have to take the best of both.

S: Is there a global music evolving?

Y; Yes, But we have to keep our cultural ground.