MUSICAL WORKS

OSAKA Naotoshi / 小坂直敏

2017

Present-Day Jakuchu Series: Butterfly Pictures “Great Purple Emperor”

Birth Y: 1953 Birth C: JAPAN Gender: Male

Media Specification: Mixed music

Performer(s): Violin: Saori NAKAZAWA / 中澤 沙央里

First perf.: September 6. 2017, Nagoya City University, School of Design and Architecture, Large Hall, premiere (revised)

Context: for violin and electroacoustics

Production Periods: 2008

Prog. notes: This piece from the composer’s Butterfly Pictures series. Jakuchu Ito is a Japanese painter from the mid-Edo period (1716-1800) whose works are known as the "Pictures of the Colorful Realm of Living Beings" which depict birds and flowers. The composer, inspired by Jakuchu, is producing a series of pieces of various butterfly species, with the intent of finding the "colorful realm" in them.
The ‘Great Purple Emperor’ is a symbolic Japanese butterfly that is very large, and primarily yellow and purple. Besides these colors and its size, its flying style is very noble. The species glides higher than ten meters above the ground among nettle trees. This piece tries to express these noble qualities of the butterfly.
The technical implementation employs real-time effects such as a harmonizer and granular synthesis with live violin. As an accompaniment, FM synthesis is used as a central sound source with ‘sound by sound’ effects, which are sounds expressed via other instruments, newly developed by the composer.

Editor: M.B.