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Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University
January 31, 2016
January 31, 2016
January 28, 2016
January 25, 2016
By null
A national music festival to promote the training of young Lithuanian musicians was organized by Dalia Dedinskaite and Gleb Pysniak, Sylff fellows who attended the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. Called Ars Lituanica, the forum was held between December 3 and 7, 2014, at Balys Dvarionis Music School in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius as a Sylff Leadership Initiatives (SLI) project.
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Young Lithuanian musicians have considerable trouble acquiring high-quality music instruments that will allow them to adequately improve their skills. Violinist Dalia Dedinskaite and cellist Gleb Pysniak were no exceptions, who faced this difficulty when they moved from their native Lithuania to Vienna to receive professional music training. Prices for fine European instruments start at around 10,000 euros for violins 18,000 euros for cellos. These are far too high for many Lithuanians, whose average monthly salary is just 531 euros, according to official government statistics.
Dedinskaite and Pysniak were able to overcome this challenge thanks to their professors’ support and their own determined efforts, but the experience left a deep impression, making them realize the acute need to help young musicians in their own country. It was through this experience that the idea for Ars Lituanica—a national forum and competition for violinists and cellists—was conceived. The idea eventually came to life through their strong initiative, passion for music, and love for their country.
They first succeeded in gaining the cooperation of famous and acknowledged craftsmen of stringed instruments—Wolfram Ries of Germany and Valdas Stravinskas of Lithuania—who agreed to lend their instruments as competition prizes and for exhibition during the forum. They also secured the patronage of President Dalia Grybauskaitė of Lithuania, who sent a message of encouragement to forum participants. They also gained the support of the Lithuanian Council for Culture, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania, and a number of private businesses. Thanks to these efforts, the forum attracted many outstanding young Lithuanian musicians and the interest of a broad segment of the general public.
The main aim of the forum was to draw the attention of young musicians—along with their teachers and parents—to the importance of musical instruments in the development of their skills and to give the best young Lithuanian musicians the opportunity to use world-class stringed instruments and to perform at concerts in Lithuania.
The highlight of the four-day forum was a national violin and cello competition, in which the winners were given the privilege of using top-quality violins and cellos for one year. In the first round, held on December 4 and 5, 18 musicians competed in two age categories, and in the final round on December 7, eight finalists competed for a chance to use the four valuable instruments.
In the 14–17 age group, the winners were awarded the use of a violin and cello made by Lithuanian luthier Valdas Stravinskas. The violin is valued at approximately 5,800 euros and the cello at 10,000 euros. The winners in the 18–22 age group were given the opportunity to use a violin and cello made by German luthier Wolfram Ries, valued at 12,000 euros and 22,000 euros, respectively.
The winning contestants also performed at the Kaledinis Vilnius (Christmas in Vilnius) festival at the Vytautas Kasiulis Art Museum.
An exhibition of the first modern string instruments in Lithuania was held as a side event, which was full of visitors over all four days. Luthiers were also on hand to speak with students, teachers, and professional musicians; make small adjustments and new bridges for violins and cellos; and rehair bows.
On December 6 luthiers held a workshop on the history of string instruments, answering questions and giving tips on the proper care of their instruments as well as on how musicians can improve their sound and comfort during performances.
Also on December 6 Dedinskaite and Pysniak joined violin virtuoso and professor Christian Altenburger to give masterclasses to competition participants and other young Lithuanian musicians.
The forum concluded on December 7 with a concert by the competition winners and an awards ceremony.
Ars Lituanica was a tremendous success. The event attracted great media attention, with over 30 articles appearing in major Lithuanian newspapers. Fellows Dalia Dedinskaite and Gleb Pysniak were interviewed by Lithuanian National Radio, and Lithuanian National Television aired footage of the Kaledinis Vilnius festival concert by the prize winners on the main evening news.
“During the Forum, a very cozy, fancy, festive atmosphere could be felt,” commented Pysniak in an article published by 15min.lt, a popular web-based newspaper in Lithuania. “It is a great pleasure to help young talents to pursue greatness in music by improving their performance technique and playing characteristics. And it is good to know that there are so many gifted and promising musicians in Lithuania.”
In the same article Dedinskaite said she was very happy that renowned violin virtuoso and educator Christian Altenburger visited Lithuania and gave his first concert in the country.
“Young musicians were able to not only learn from Mr. Altenburger’s experience but listen to his music as well,” she noted. “The most important thing is that this project was a success and that four young, talented artists were granted the chance to use top-class instruments. I hope that this event will become an annual tradition.”
Dedinskaite, second from right, and Pysniak, third from right, with the prize winners and juries at the ceremony.
Pysniak and Dedinskaite are themselves outstanding performers, but they were not satisfied with striving only for personal success. Displaying strong leadership, they sought to make a contribution to raising standards of musical performance in their country in a creative and imaginative manner. Their passion and enthusiasm persuaded government organizations and private businesses to offer their support, significantly enhancing the impact of the event. The Tokyo Foundation hopes that their SLI project will inspire and encourage other fellows with similar aspirations to launch a project aimed at bringing positive changes to society.
We hope that the young musicians who participated in the forum will become leaders of the classical music scene, emerging as role models for the next generation of young artists in Lithuania and around the world.
January 22, 2016
January 18, 2016
Sylff fellow Dylan Corlay, a graduate of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris and a participant in the 2012 Together in Tohoku project was named the first prize winner at the 6th Jorma Panula Conducting Competition 2015, held at the Vaasa City Hall in Finland on November 13, 2015.
The event is one of the most prestigious contests for next-generation conductors in Europe. Jorma Panula, the competition’s artistic director and chairman of the jury, is a legendary conducting teacher who is considered the “maestro of maestros.” He has been training young conductors for nearly four decades, and many of today’s most illustrious conductors have studied with him. The competition gives young European conductors an excellent opportunity to gain valuable experience, promote their own work, increase their visibility as a conductor, and open new doors.
Corlay was also selected as the favorite orchestra conductor in the competition.
The 31-year-old French Sylff fellow is currently assistant conductor of the prestigious contemporary music ensemble, Ensemble Intercontemporain, and conducts student orchestras at the Conservatoire de Tours.
He volunteered his time to participate in the Together in Tohoku project in August 2012 as a French bassoon musician, during which he also led “sound painting” workshops for middle and high school musicians in tsunami-hit areas of northern Japan.
November 13 was, coincidentally, also the day of the Paris terrorist attacks. The great news of Corlay’s achievement is a ray of light on this otherwise sad and dark day. Our warmest congratulations to Dylan!
Visit Corlay’s website at: http://www.dylancorlay.com/
January 18, 2016
December 22, 2015
Wishing You Peace and Joy in the New Year!
(Back row, from left) Tomoko Yamada, Takashi Suzuki (Director), Kaoru Matsushita (Director), Akiko Inagaki; (middle row) Yoko Kaburagi, Sanae Oda (Executive Director), Masahiro Akiyama (President), Akiko Imai (Executive Director), Yukiko Otani;(seated) Keita Sugai, Aya Oyamada, Yumi Arai, Mari Suzuki (Director), Mana Sakamoto
We are pleased to announce that this past October, fellowships were given to five students at the University of Coimbra (Portugal), the under the new Sylff Fellowship Program. The program is being offered jointly by The Nippon Foundation and Tokyo Foundation to all schools in the Sylff program...(more...)
Three fellows were selected as Sylff Leadership Initiatives recipients in 2015 so far, and their reports can be read here. In addition, 28 Sylff Research Abroad grants were awarded. The reports of SRA awardees on the Sylff website are classified by fiscal year-round number. We look forward to receiving many more applications in 2016.
We're very happy to share news of outstanding achievements by Sylff fellows around the world, including:
February 24
Conductor Holly Mathieson, a Sylff fellow from New Zealand, organized a concert on March 18, 2015, in Berlin, Germany, to launch Horizont Musik-Kollektiv, an organization to celebrate the works...(more...)
June 1
At the Institute of Political Education in Italy, Sylff fellowships are granted through the “Idea-Action Research Program” to encourage research projects in the social sciences and...(more...)
September 5
Marisa Hamamoto, a 2007 Sylff fellowship recipient at Keio University, has launched Infinite Flow, America’s first professional wheelchair ballroom dance company. It is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that...(more...)
We welcomed many current and graduated fellows, and the comittee chairman to the Tokyo Foundation in 2015.
January 29
Violinist Johannes Fleischmann, a 2013 Sylff fellowship recipient at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna, made a tour of venues around Japan in October 2014,including a special lunchtime...(more...)
February 24, September 8
Lindsey Lim, who received a Sylff fellowship in 2014 at Columbia University, visited the Tokyo Foundation in January 6 and June 4, 2015, to give presentations...(more for article on Feb. 24...) (more for article on Sep. 8...)
May 25
Numtip Smerchuar, a 2006 Sylff fellowship recipient at Chiang Mai University, visited the Tokyo Foundation on May 11, 2015. While working as a lecturer in the School of Political and Social Science...(more...)
June 26
Professor Ulrike Schaede, chairperson of the Sylff program at the School of Global Policy and Strategy (formerly the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies), University of California,...(more...)
December 18
On December 4, 2015, Ngo Hong Anh Thu, a 2014 Sylff fellowship recipient at Vietnam National University, Hanoi, visited the Tokyo Foundation and gave a presentation on her doctoral research....(more...)
December 21, 2015
By null
Since 2006, the Sylff Chamber Music Seminar has been held jointly by the Juilliard School in New York, the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna and the Paris Conservatoire. A special support program for the three institutions is funded by the Tokyo Foundation, enabling approximately 14 fellows to gather at one of the host institutions each year, rehearsing and receiving coaching together before performing a final concert for a local audience and members of the host institution. The goal of the seminar is to foster long-term professional relationships among fellows and institutions and to expose them to different performing and teaching styles as well as to develop young leaders and artist-citizens of the 21st century.
Tokyo Foundation Program Officer Tomoko Yamada provides a report of the ninth seminar, held in New York in January 2015.
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From January 4 to 13, 2015, the Juilliard School hosted eight Sylff musicians from the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna, and the Paris Conservatoire. These musicians joined four professors and five Juilliard Sylff fellows for a week of chamber music, culminating in a vibrant concert at the renowned Paul Hall in Lincoln Center, the artistic epicenter of Manhattan. The musicians, originally from France, Austria, Australia, China, and Lithuania, performed works by Vissarion Shebalin, John Harbison, and Brahms.
Things got off to a less-than-ideal start when the musicians from Paris arrived a day late and without their luggage after their plane was cancelled. New York City at minus 10 degrees Celsius is not the place to be when you have no clothes except what you are wearing. Even more worrisome for the musicians, this delay meant the potentially devastating loss of a whole day of rehearsal time—no small matter when the schedule allowed only a week or so from the first meeting to final performance.
The musicians ended up going straight from the airport into lessons and rehearsals. One of the fellows recalled: “Not having a break and seeing the rooms the moment we arrived from a two days long and complicated flight and having a lesson so early in the week. . . It would have been nice to practice a little more with all five (group of five among the three institutions who were brought together for the first time to play the Harbison Quintet) of us together before meeting the professor. But he was okay, comprehensive and helped us a lot with our practice (maybe it’s a cultural difference. . . ) The role of the teacher is more like a coach in the USA, helping the student to find a way to be independent. In Paris the teacher is waiting for a result, a concert version, more or less.”
This exposure to cultural differences is one of the strengths of the seminar. Guest fellows are exposed to different styles of teaching and practice that open their eyes to new perspectives. Generally speaking, the European master-teacher sees the student as an apprentice, who needs detailed instructions leading to an expected outcome. The American teacher tends to be more flexible, offering a blend of concrete guidance and greater openness to alternative approaches. Many European teachers believe it is their job to steer the student to the perfect performance. American teachers want their students to find their own voice, allow their soul to find expression in the music, even if the result is quite different from how the teacher would play it.
I enjoyed a rare opportunity to observe the coaching sessions. I was struck by the energy and passion of the coaches. The fellows were obviously taken in as they were scribbling away frantically on their scores, determined not to miss a word from the coaches.
Rehearsals were generally run by the host fellows from Juilliard, who had the delicate task of balancing the rigorous rehearsals with varying needs of guest fellows. Some were suffering from jetlag, while others were anxious to get a taste of the city. Yet others needed to grab some clothes at H&M because their luggage still hadn’t turned up. The host fellows tried to strike a balance between organizing intense rehearsals and making sure that their guests got some free time. I knew from the previous two seminars that each of the three institutions has its own styles of practice and rehearsal. The American approach seems to give the students a large degree of freedom to determine what they need to rehearse and when.
Amid the tightly knit coaching, rehearsal and practice, Bärli Nugent, who is assistant dean and director of chamber music at Juilliard and works as the orchestrator of the Sylff Chamber Music Seminar, managed to squeeze in a session on Saturday afternoon with a group of Juilliard pre-college students and the wind instrument fellows. “Juilliard pre-college students” are teenagers ranging from 10 to 18 who have a serious interest in music-playing and take pre-college classes at Juilliard in preparation for a possible music career. This was a magnificent idea. Fellows got a chance to share their experience and expertise as musicians with younger people. The pre-college teenagers started by performing one movement of the Harbison wind quintet, followed by the Sylff fellows playing the same piece. This was followed by a lecture by a fellow on French bassoon, which is rarely played outside France. Finally, there was an informal discussion among the fellows and pre-college students.
One could see that this was a mind-boggling experience for the pre-college students. I could observe their seriousness in the way they listened intently to the fellows’ performance, silently taking notes on the scores on their lap. During the informal discussion, one of the fellows, a flutist, demonstrated one of his favorite practicing techniques. He played an Irish folksong, beating the rhythm with his foot, and explained that this helps the body to relax and play better. One of the pre-college students, a young Asian girl who had been watching intensely, seemed astonished by this revelation. She had always concentrated on practicing the perfect technique for classical flute, and this more relaxed approach seemed to open her eyes to a new perspective.
The session with pre-college students was also valuable for the fellows, one of whom described it as a highlight of the entire seminar. “The best moment was when we met the pre-college students, listened to them, and played for them, and especially the talk we had together about what music means for us, our futures, our passion” That was the most powerful aspect of the entire seminar for him. As well as learning many new things during the seminar, the fellows also had a valuable opportunity to teach something to local young musicians who may follow in their footsteps. It was a chance for all the fellows to reexamine their own passion for music.
As the days went by, the music gradually moved closer to perfection. I realized that the fellows were not simply learning and practicing the music. Rather, they were interpreting the score and finding the music by fusing the differing musical opinions among them. This was particularly true for Shebalin’s String Quartet No. 9. This piece was proposed by Juilliard’s Sylff fellow, Meta Weiss, whose doctoral research had focused on how Soviet politics and the composer’s medical condition manifested itself in his music. Weiss's research in Moscow was funded in part by the Sylff Research Abroad program. Thus, for the first time, research and performance were brought together with Sylff support. Doing this was not easy, however. The score that Weiss had brought back from Moscow was incomplete and there was little additional information available on the music. Weiss worked together with Susanne Schäffer (Vienna) and Clare Semes (Juilliard) on violins and Marina Capstick (Paris) on viola to interpret the score and completed the music for the performance.
Clare Semes reflected: “Learning the music of Shebalin was a very powerful experience. My colleagues and I had the privilege of learning, with great help from Weiss, the ninth quartet of this little-known composer. The journey from the first rehearsal to the final performance was very impactful because I was able to discover the music of Shebalin with new and old friends from Juilliard, Vienna, and Paris.”
(From left to right) Clare Semes, Suzanne Schäffer, Marina Capstick, and Meta Weiss performing the Shebalin quartet.
The concert began with the Shebalin quartet. Before the performance, Weiss provided the audience with some background on the remarkable story of the piece. Shebalin’s grandchildren were present in the audience as the piece received its American premiere.
(From left to right) Samuel Bricault, Julia DeRosa, David Raschella, Lomic Lamouroux, and Georgina Oakes performing the Harbison quintet.
This poignant performance was followed by John Harbison’s quintet for winds. Harbison is a contemporary New York composer who remains little known outside the United States. Most of the fellows had never played his music before. The effort they made to grapple with this unfamiliar music was well rewarded in a performance that was intense and at times playful.
The concert reached its grand finale with Brahms’ majestic Piano Quartet in G Minor, a performance that was greeted with roaring applause from the audience.
(From left to right)Yun Wei, Marc Desjardins, Gleb Pysniak, and Ying Xiong performing the Brahms piano quartet.
This comment by a fellow who has participated in seminars at all three host institutions sums up the program best:
“Chamber music is a beautiful musical form. It not only allows each musical personality to shine individually but also makes possible a wonderful blending and shaping of colors though a variety of instrumental combinations. These seminars have given me an opportunity to understand my own musical voice by not just exposing me but immersing me in new musical cultures. Each immersion gave me the possibility to reflect upon my own approach to music. To identify similarities and differences, to gather new ideas and tools.
“But, most importantly, coming away from these seminars over the past three years, I can feel that they have mapped my development from being a student seeking a teacher’s guiding path into an artist with my own personality, voice and integrity.”
Every great program owes its success to the people working behind the scene to make it happen. I would like to end this report by expressing my sincere thanks to Bärli Nugent of Juilliard, Gretchen Amussen (director of external affairs and international relations, Paris Conservatoire) and Dorothea Riedel (project manager, University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna) whose efforts have helped this program to flourish.
December 18, 2015
On December 4, 2015, Ngo Hong Anh Thu, a 2014 Sylff fellowship recipient at Vietnam National University, Hanoi, visited the Tokyo Foundation and gave a presentation on her doctoral research.
Now a lecturer at the university, Thu was selected as an SRA awardee in the first round of 2015. Her three-month research abroad is being conducted at the Tokyo Institute of Technology through December 2015, and she is focusing on changes in membrane surfaces that may have applications in the treatment of polluted water.
The research environment in Vietnam is still beset by inadequate supplies of equipment, Thu said. The SRA award has enabled her to access the advanced equipment at Tokyo Tech and to focus on data collection and analysis. To make the most of the opportunity, she is spending from 9 am to 11 pm at the lab on weekdays. Using the findings of her research in Japan, she will concentrate on writing her dissertation next year in Vietnam.
Thu said she also enjoyed interacting with Japanese and foreign researchers at Tokyo Tech, which has given her an opportunity to broaden her cultural perspective.
After earning a doctorate, she plans to pursue her research as a postdoctoral fellow in Japan. She hopes that her research will help solve water-related issues, especially in developing countries.
December 14, 2015