Middens
for Japanese instruments
Description
A midden is an archeological dump of domestic waste. Often they are composed of leftover shells that have accumulated over centuries - or even millennia - forming mounds of formidable proportions in places where there is or once was access to the sea and suitable conditions for shell foraging. Such shell mounds are found all over the world, and some of them are among the earliest pieces of evidence of human presence and possible habitat in the area.
I feel that a midden has palpable, mysterious energy. It is an ancient formation, many of them millennia older than the pyramids of Egypt, and they are not built as monuments for gods, but rather they have been created unintenionally, leaving us hints of what life was like in the earlier stages of humanity's existence.
One should never touch or dig a midden, as it will be then forever altered or destroyed, and this I find adds to the odd energy and draw I feel in them: if I were to dig and look inside, I could see and touch something that was previously seen and touched by a prehistoric person, and nothing will be between us except a vast amount of time. The connection feels much more personal than say - admiring or entering the pyramids. The midden is like a sealed envelope, it conceals something much more personal.
In movement I - pristinity (they came and trampled the flowers), I imagined a place yet unvisited by homo sapiens. Nothing happes, until something does.
In movement II - hommage à BAZ I attempt to tap into the mysterious energy of a midden. When thinking of musical ways of expressing such palpable, almost pulsating energy, I found myself thinking a lot of Stille und Umkehr by Bernd Alois Zimmermann. It has a static tension that inspired me when writing this movement.
Movement III - future furious is an expression of the present world. While shell middens are extremely long lasting, they are formed with natural materials, and nature can thrive around and on them. Our moderns middens on the other hand: huge waist dumps filled with plastic and other non-degradable materials, will outlive the ancienct middens of early humans and leave permanent damage to where they are set. I do not intend to chastise anyone over the modern way of life, as I very much participate in it myself. Rather I feel the fumes and fuels of factories producing to-be-waste and a frustrating sense inevitability in the music. We realize where our way of life leads us, and many of us feel we have to do something about it, but in the end individuals have very little in their power to achieve meaningful change.
Instrumentation
Shakuhachi, 2 shamisens / kokyūs, 25-string koto, 17-string koto, Japanese percussion
PremiereEnsemble Mahoroba, May 18, 2026, Gotanda Culture Centre Hall, Tokyo
MovementsI - pristinity (they came and trampled the flowers), II - hommage à BAZ, III - future furious
Commissioned by / Dedicated toCommissioned by and dedicated to J-TRAD Ensemble MAHOROBA
PDF for promotional useArchive number
MF36402
