14 April 2018

Japan Creative Centre (JCC)

Join us in a riveting and immersive musical experience with artists from The Arts Fission & The Philharmonic Orchestra. Hosted by the creative curatorial team of Dr Joyce Beetuan Koh, Cultural Medallion recipient Angela Liong and Pianist Shane Thio, they will introduce acclaimed Japanese composer, Toru Takemitsu, self-proclaimed as the gardener composer, and take audience in a walk to his musical garden through short sketches of music and dance performances.

Details of the event

Exhibition Period:

Saturday, 14 April 2018

Opening Hours:

2:00pm to 3:30pm (Registration starts 1:30pm)

Venue:

Japan Creative Centre (JCC), Embassy of Japan in Singapore
4 Nassim Road Singapore 258372

Admission:

FREE

About the event

A TAKEMITSU SEASON: the Spring Soiree is an event that will offer visitors a very intimate, immersive experience about Toru Takemitsu’s creative inspiration.

Event Curators will greet visitors and serve Japanese tea while talking about the influence of the Japanese Garden on Toru Takemitsu’s music. They share the Singapore artists’ response to Takemitsu’s garden inspired works with the creative staging of a Day Garden and a Night Garden at the two exhibition chambers. Visitors are then invited to stroll freely and experience the two symbolic gardens inside the house through encounters of incidental music, sounds, and dance performances.

Visitors are also invited to participate in a Garden Exercise along their viewing. They can retrieve cut-up strips of the music score of Toru Takemitsu’s Rain Tree Sketch II that have been placed among object installations in different areas of the house. The cut-up strips are to be passed to Pianist Shane Thio so he can play a newly reassembled Takemitsu score, very much similar to the act of digging out perennial bulbs and plants from the soil and rearranging them for a new garden season.

About Toru Takemitsu

Mr. Toru Takemitsu (1930 – 1996), an important composer of the twentieth and twenty-first century, is a major source of inspiration for many Asian-influenced composers who came after him. An acclaimed classical composer and music theorist, he was also a film composer that inspired many film music composers.

Toru Takemitsu was known for merging Western compositional technique with Eastern aesthetics in his works. He gave the most poetic titles to his music that reflected profound inspiration of nature and the concept of the traditional Japanese garden on his music creations. He had proclaimed himself ‘the gardener composer’.

About the speakers

Ms Angela Liong is a key figure in the Singapore contemporary dance scene. Trained in the USA, she developed Singapore’s first formal, structured tertiary-level dance programmes at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and LASALLE College of the Arts, helping to cultivate generations of young contemporary dance talent. She also co-founded Singapore’s first multidisciplinary contemporary dance company, The Arts Fission, raising the profile of contemporary dance in performances that focused on current issues and traditional stories. In 2009, she received the Cultural Medallion for her contributions to dance in Singapore

Dr Joyce Beetuan Koh writes concert music, works in dance collaborations, and creates sound installations and multimedia productions. Her music is published Associated Board Royal Schools of Music (UK), featured at Biennale Musiques France, Birmingham Frontiers Festival and performed by groups such as BBC Symphony Orchestra, Hungarian Symphony Orchestra, and Stavanger Symphony Orchestra. She is currently the Vice Dean (Interdisciplinary Studies) at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore since 2014

Mr Shane Thio studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London on an Associated Board Scholarship who worked with various groups such as Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Youth Choir and Singapore Dance Theatre. He performs regularly as a chamber music pianist and harpsichordist including recitals with winners of the Long-Thibaud and Paganini International Violin Competitions. He is an inaugural recipient of the National Arts Council Young Artist Award that enabled his further studies at the Royal College of Music.

Register for A TAKEMITSU SEASON: the Spring Soiree

To register, please email the following details to jcc@sn.mofa.go.jp with the subject A TAKEMITSU SEASON: the Spring Soiree:

1. Full Name
2. Number of persons (including yourself)
3. Organisation
4. Mobile Number

Please register early to avoid disappointment. We regret that as there is limited seating, seats will be confirmed only upon receipt of confirmation email from JCC. ALL EVENTS ARE FREE OF CHARGE.

Where is Japan Creative Centre (JCC)?

Is this your first time to Japan Creative Centre? Follow the map below to Japan Creative Centre now.

Getting to Japan Creative Centre
4 Nassim Road Singapore 258372
Tel: +65-6737-0434

By Public Bus:
Bus services: 7, 36, 77, 105, 106, 111, 123, 132, 174, 174E, 502, 502A, 502B (Alight in front of Delfi Orchard)
For latest information on bus routes and fares, please refer to SBS Transit.

By the MRT:
You may also take the MRT to the nearest MRT station, Orchard (NS22).
Train fares, travel times and route maps are available on the SMRT website.

Driving to JCC:
Nearest parking is at Orchard Hotel, Delfi Orchard and Orchard Parade Hotel.