Daryl Jamieson

composer

utamakura 3: Saihōji

On 10 November 2018, atelier jaku presents the first of a three-part series of concerts called the ‘Garden Series’. In this concert, the first half will feature new-music icon John Cage’s seminal Ryoanji for oboe and voice. Daryl Jamieson’s new piece utamakura 3: Saihōji for voice, cor anglais, and percussion with field recordings fills the second half.
Please join performers Yakushiji Noriko (voice), Unagami Nagisa (oboe/cor anglais), and Aita Mizuki (percussion) for a music event aimed at all five senses: including an art installation (Portable Garden) by regular atelier jaku collaborators Setsuami and Takeyama Keisuke, bespoke incense (Natura in minima maxima) and two specially-commissioned cocktails.

Tickets:    ¥3500
Drinks (including two bespoke cocktails) and food are available, but are not included in the ticket price.
Tickets are available to be purchased from atelier jaku directly (website).


Location:  Isezaki Bar 333
      1-3-1 Isezaki-chō, Naka-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa
      (3 minutes walk from Kannai station on the JR Keihin Tōhoku/Yokohama/Negishi lines, or Yokohama subway's Blue Line)

'Hollow Sounds' Published

My first journal article since 2007 has been published in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. The paper is called ‘Hollow Sounds: Toward a Zen-derived aesthetics of contemporary music’. It develops how my reading of Japanese philosophy (especially Kyoto School philosophy) has influenced how I listen. The aesthetics blog ‘Aesthetics for Birds’ has a summary I wrote up on their website, which is free to access.

Abstract: To attempt to fill a perceived gap in Japanese aesthetics concerning music, this paper sketches a possible way into conceptualising a Zen- or Kyoto-school-derived aesthetics of contemporary music. Drawing principally on Kyoto-School philosopher Ueda Shizuteru’s theories of language’s three levels (signal, symbolic, and hollow words), the author proposes a similar distinction between different kinds of musical experience. Analogous with Ueda’s analysis of poetry, the oscillation of signal or symbolic sound and hollow ones is found to be what gives certain contemporary music its spiritual power. By applying this poetic-religious theory of language to music, an entirely new way of understanding contemporary music becomes apparent. As test case of this new approach, Morton Feldman’s 1970 work The Viola in My Life (2) is analysed. The final section addresses the differences between this method of understanding via nothingness and traditional Idealist approaches via the Absolute.
Keywords: Kyoto School, Ueda Shizuteru, Morton Feldman, Jonathan Harvey, aesthetics of contemporary (atonal) music