| Ensemble für Neue Musik Zürich “I'm Japanese and write music the same way other people do!” she disarmingly remarks as we talk about any possible connections to the Japanese music tradition ... Noriko Hisada does not let herself be pinned down as to whether or not Japanese tradition clashes with the Western dominance of the music establishment. Only the first impression of her music sounds like Western European New Music that does not reject tonality and follows strict methods of musical organisation. In addition, there is Hisada's predilection for extended as well as microtonal melodic patterns and her antenna for the dramaturgy of extremes.Toru Takemitsu, the most renowned Japanese composer of the 20th century, once took a critical view of the “Japanisation” of the avant-garde and made a statement that could apply to Noriko Hisada too: in the painful tension between East and West all one can do is to find oneself and deal with the irreconcilable by way of one's compositions. — Corinne Holtz |