SEIGAI-HA for Six Percussionists（2015）

During a period of overseas study I had the opportunity to visit the temples with their colossal stone columns in the ancient Greek city of Paestum, which looks out on to the Tyrrhenian Sea in southern Italy near Naples. These stone columns gave me the main idea for this work. Sounds reverberating along a vertical axis are hammered down like stakes in accordance with the Fibonacci series, interspersed with scattered fragments of sound based on the Tribonacci series. These sounds gradually combine so as to pile on top of one another in surging waves. The time and space continuum becomes overlaid with gradations that expand from single points to a plane, with stakes forming a backdrop. The stakes assume a variety of guises while playing a constant role as the backbone of the work.
In 2011 I composed a work entitled Umi wo wataru kane no oto (‘The sound of a bell crossing the sea’) as a requiem for those who perished in the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. I composed Seigai-ha in 2015 for the members of Percussion Museum as the successor to this earlier work in the hope that it would serve as a message of support for those who survived the disaster.
The name of a pattern consisting of linked wave-like concentric semicircles used in costume decoration, seigai-ha is thought to have its origins in the Sassanid era of the Persian empire. The pattern was subsequently transmitted to China and then on to Japan. It acquired its Japanese name, meaning ‘waves in the blue sea’, due to its use to decorate the costume worn by dancers in the ancient Gagaku dance piece (Bugaku) Seigai-ha . As a design traditionally considered to possess auspicious significance, it is still used frequently as a motif in modern design. I adopted it as the title of this work to symbolise the idea of everlasting peace through its association in my mind with the Japanese expression shikai nami shizuka (‘the Four Seas are becalmed’), meaning ‘the world is at peace’.