Episode 99 — March 30, 2021
Miyama McQueen-Tokita: “Untitled Improvisation” for koto
Performed by Miyama McQueen-Tokita

Miyama McQueen-Tokita has been playing the koto since she was just seven years old. She learned piano and western instruments, too, but stuck with the koto and eventually studied it in college and moved to Tokyo to take it even more seriously. And lately, she’s been exploring the bass koto as a tool for improvisation, using the instrument’s natural resonances to unearth new sounds. For the House Music series, she follows this pattern, presenting an untitled improvisation on the bass koto.

This is McQueen-Tokita’s first official collaboration with Metropolis Ensemble. She became familiar with the group in 2019 while in New York for a six-month residency with the Asian Cultural Council, where she was studying new music and free improvisation. Early on in her stay, a friend brought her to a concert at Metropolis’s One Rivington venue, which featured artists like composer and guitarist Patrick Higgins. It was an instantly memorable evening, and fit squarely within McQueen-Tokita’s desire to learn more about improvisatory practices. There, she met Andrew Cyr, Metropolis’s Artistic Director, and they’ve kept up with each other since, eventually leading to this House Music series partnership.

Here, she performs a free improvisation, following the lead of a recurring, simple motif. Her bass koto is over two meters long, with 17 strings that are played by plucking. As she improvises, she moves the bridge around to change the tuning of the strings; in this particular improvisation, she uses a seven-note scale but isn’t bound by any particular key. In performing, McQueen-Tokita draws on traditional Japanese techniques and resonance of the instrument in order to discover sounds she hasn’t heard before. She performs her improvisation in the Nerima neighborhood of Tokyo, in an event space that was originally an early-20th century house.

Miyama McQueen-Tokita has been playing the koto since she was just seven years old. She learned piano and western instruments, too, but stuck with the koto and eventually studied it in college and moved to Tokyo to take it even more seriously. And lately, she’s been exploring the bass koto as a tool for improvisation, using the instrument’s natural resonances to unearth new sounds. For the House Music series, she follows this pattern, presenting an untitled improvisation on the bass koto.

This is McQueen-Tokita’s first official collaboration with Metropolis Ensemble. She became familiar with the group in 2019 while in New York for a six-month residency with the Asian Cultural Council, where she was studying new music and free improvisation. Early on in her stay, a friend brought her to a concert at Metropolis’s One Rivington venue, which featured artists like composer and guitarist Patrick Higgins. It was an instantly memorable evening, and fit squarely within McQueen-Tokita’s desire to learn more about improvisatory practices. There, she met Andrew Cyr, Metropolis’s Artistic Director, and they’ve kept up with each other since, eventually leading to this House Music series partnership.

Here, she performs a free improvisation, following the lead of a recurring, simple motif. Her bass koto is over two meters long, with 17 strings that are played by plucking. As she improvises, she moves the bridge around to change the tuning of the strings; in this particular improvisation, she uses a seven-note scale but isn’t bound by any particular key. In performing, McQueen-Tokita draws on traditional Japanese techniques and resonance of the instrument in order to discover sounds she hasn’t heard before. She performs her improvisation in the Nerima neighborhood of Tokyo, in an event space that was originally an early-20th century house.

Notes by Vanessa Ague

 
House Music: Bite-sized concerts recorded at homes around the world

In 2020-21, we created a weekly video series featuring short-form concerts of newly-commissioned works, supporting 208 artists around the world during the pandemic.