2011: Kanoko Nishi

with Tony Dryer: contrabass
IOIOI: electric guitar

Composer/performer Kanoko Nishi presents her original graphic scores featuring Tony Dyer on contrabass and Italian guitarist and visual artist IOIOI from Italy. A classically trained pianist, Nishi’s interests include performing 20th Century and contemporary music on piano and koto, and free improvisation. She has performed a number of compositions by living composers including Hyo-shin Na, Young Ja Lee, and Zachary Watkins. She has also collaborated with dancers Paige Sorvillo, Yuko Kaseki, Sherwood Chen, and Isak Immanuel; poets Ito Hiromi and Dennis Somera; and musicians Jacob Felix Heule, Theresa Wong, Maryclare Brzytwa, Shayna Dunkelman, and Aram Shelton. Contrabassist Tony Dryer and IOIOI from Italy will perform Nishi’s works as soloists. Nishi says, “The idea of graphic scores, as opposed to standard stave notation, has always interested me, for it seemed to allow the composers to focus not on the compositions of sounds, but more on the manipulations of the performer's inner psychological drive by means of visual cues and simulations, of which the sound is only a byproduct. This is very close to the way in which I personally approach a free-improvisation, and here so, I have attempted to visually recreate some sorts of simulations I might experience during an improvisational performance. These pieces of images are dedicated to my dear friend in Italy, Critiana Fraticelli, who, living so far, is unable to experience the performances live but might be able to get a sense of them through these representations.”

Funded in part through Meet The Composer’s MetLife Creative Connections program

Artist (photo by Photographer)