Program Note:

I have embraced, for the Heike Quinto, The Tale of Heike, an epic medieval chronicle, which was compiled in the 13th century from oral stories chanted by traveling monks to the accompaniment of Biwa, an instrument similar to the lute. In the duo, the koto player chants “Hey,” an alternate reading of the first character of the Taira clan.

The core theme of the story is the Buddhist law of importance. In the story, the arrogance and pride of power lead to the Taira family’s destruction. The epic begins with the following statement: “The proud do not endure, they are like a dream on a spring evening; the mighty fall at last. They are as dust before the wind.”

The Heike Quinto tells a story through the eyes of three female protagonists—Taira no Tokushi (I and II), daughter of Kiyomori and later empress; Kogō (III), a beautiful and gifted koto musician, and Tomoe Gozen (IV), a noble and brave female warrior who fought against the Heike. All three once lived in a world of opulence and glory but through cruel forces of fate, ended their lives living in seclusion as nuns. The work is dedicated to Duo YUMENO, for whom it was composed, in gratitude for having led me in this journey through Japanese history and literature, and for so beautifully championing the works that have resulted.

The final work in the Heike Quinto combines the live koto and cello with an electroacoustic soundscape (fixed media) derived from fragments of the preceding movements. In it I have imagined the travelling monks who sang to the accompaniment of the biwa have fused with the ancient western storytelling of Homer in a sort of lurid deep dive into a collective subconsciousness that combines fragmented elements of both cultures as though to suggest that the stories told are universal, the witnesses to the tragedy and transcendence both humble and wise; that the story was in the telling: as Orson Welles observed, “Our songs will all be silenced, but what of it? Go on singing.”