Sean and I met like several years ago, 2018, 19? Something like that. Pre-COVID, yes. And then we worked
on a few projects together since then. And this is the first time making music together in person, which
doesn't really feel like it, because we've known each other quite some time. He is a Meiyoshi Han, which
is his highest rank of Shakuhachi tradition. And he is
my shakuhachi teacher. And I learned so much about Japanese culture, Japanese Aesthetism, Japanese music
from him. And he was the one who inspired me to go back to my musical roots. And my sort of artistic
voice, my artistic sort of input is really based on around, you know, the interaction that I had with
him, interaction that I had with this instrument. So I'm really excited to share with you all this man. So
Without further ado, Sean, would you mind maybe briefly introduce yourself? And I think we are interested
in how you really came into this instrument. Well, first off, I want to say thank you for having me.
And like he said, this is our first time making music. But when that first note came out for us that
the orchestra was together with the shakuhachi, it just felt so natural.
really easy. So even though it's such a difficult piece, I mean, this guy makes it really easy.
So I'm really, you guys are really lucky to have him here in Bloomington. So as he said, my name is
Sean Tidy Head. I am American, obviously, but you wouldn't know by the clothes, but I really
had always had an affinity for Asian culture when I was a kid. I remember even the first time seeing
Asian characters. I can't even remember what language it was. I'm pretty sure it was either Chinese
or Japanese. And I just asked my mom, what's that up there? And she's like, I don't know. It's probably Asian.
Very good observation, mother. Thank you so much. But later I would find out that those were kind of
the languages I was really interested in. It was also the culture I was really interested in. So I loved
watching animation. I was a huge Dragon Ball fan, Dragon Ball Z.
I wear those badges with pride as loving an anime. And I also loved old samurai films. But there was
at one point at the bottom of the screen that I was stuck. I could only read the subtitles to understand
what was happening in the shows. So part of it was I really wanted to learn the language so that I could
actually watch the anime. I could actually watch the films without having to constantly look down and
rewind to see what they were saying.
But inside those films, this instrument was heavily used to color the scenes. And so one of the most
popular colors that is used in that is this sound. And so I can see the head nodding. It's like, I know
that sound. And I didn't know that this was the instrument.
And so later I saw this instrument and I saw someone playing it and I thought, that's the thing I want
to learn. Meanwhile, up until that time, I had been studying violin and viola, composition, and I even
got myself into a really nice music school before I even graduated high school. But then I just started
playing it. I thought nothing of it. I just loved playing the instrument. And lo and behold, it became
the thing I do as a career, amazingly.
Yeah. Well, that's amazing. You know, the special thing about Sean is not only he's very knowledgeable
about Japanese culture, Japanese ethosism or Japanese music, but he speaks like a really random guy
from Osaka prefecture. And there's a strong dialect, Kansai-ben. And then, you know, when I spoke to
him for the first time in Japanese, I was so shocked.
Why is this guy speaking like my relative from Osaka? And it was interesting. We made, I don't know
if you remember this, but we made a few video series when we were working together in Japan on Aesthetism,
the Japanese Aesthetism. There are really interesting philosophical idea of Japanese Aesthetism and
you will hear and you feel in this piece that we're going to play. But he would make those films in
Japanese, in Kansai-ben. It was so funny.
And yeah, so just speaking of those Japanese Aesthetism, you know, you have such a prolific, like extended
training in Western music, you went to conservatory. What would you say, you know, like the main difference
when we were perceiving like Western art, Western music versus, you know, Eastern or Eastern music or
even like Japanese music, Japanese art?
Yeah, the Japanese aesthetic is very interesting. In our Western world, we are dominated by tonic, pre-tonic,
dominance, and tonic once returned. So that's basically very fancy language to say, one, four, five,
one, and then repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. That is the essence and the backbone of classical music.
And some would even just argue and say it's just one, five. It's tonic and dominance and then back to
the tonic again.
And so this harmonic structure, since the days of Bach, is what has really defined the voice of Europe.
But in Japan, they don't have necessarily the tonic dominant relationship in the same sense that we
do. Now, they do have that kind of relationship, and you can hear it in the music, but both the tonic
and the dominant have stopping locations, which means that you can end on either one, and it feels right.
It feels complete. So the best way I could probably explain
is that Western music is highly goal oriented. It's always moving forward and wants to go to the next
place to express the next idea. Where Japanese music rather wants to stay on the single note in the
single tone and express that idea through tone colors. So the way that the sound of that individual
note develops and changes over time is much more interesting than the way that in the West we would
say how the harmony develops over time.
Yeah, that's really great. And I think you will hear definitely in the piece that we're going to play
this idea of a single sound. And even that sound disappears, and there's a silence. You hear, you feel
something that kind of resonates you during this silence. My favorite composer, Japanese composer, Takemitsu,
would say that the silence is as intense as the sound that you hear.
And you really feel you get to experience that in this piece that we're going to play. But before we
jump into the piece, I would love to sort of get to know Sean more with your, you know, you've lived
in Japan for how many years? Six years, just under six years. Six years. And you went to Japan,
you know, on the tour, performing there. What would you say like the most memorable moment that you
had with this instrument?
The most interesting moment was actually a collection of hikes that I did with one of my best friends
in Japan. He's a Buddhist monk and has been living in Japan for now over 25 years. And one of the things
that I loved doing with this instrument was I loved to just train my body with it. So I would hike up
mountains and play the flute at the same time, you know, play pieces in different parts of the winter,
like dead of winter.
And I think the most memorable moment was the first time we went hiking. We were in full kimono garb,
but it was like negative two degrees outside. It was very cold. And we hiked up one of the main mountains
in Nara to the top where you could see the entire, basically all of Nara city, all of Katsuragi and
some other cities as well. And even though it was so
brutally cold at the top of the mountain. I mean, when I looked over at my friend's face, I'm like,
wow, this place is so gorgeous. It's just so beautiful. And his head is red as a tomato. And then we're
starting to get down. And then I felt it. I felt like, wow, that was really cold. And as I'm walking
down the mountain and we're still stopping and playing our flutes a couple of places, again, it's minus
2 degrees. These things ain't moving fast. One of my slippers broke. And so I had to do the rest of
the hike barefoot.
And when I got to the bus stop, I sat there, and he's sitting next to me, and I was looking at my arm,
and I was like, I wonder how fast I can close this.
didn't move, and I was like, uh-oh. But it was like a really incredible experience to push my body to
the limits. And I think it was a physical representation of what we do sonically in music, is how far
can I push the music sonically to make something digestible for my audience member, that they can really
hear the narration and the story that goes along with it. So that's probably the most vivid memory I
have of Japan.
Do you want to go with me? Maybe not. I don't deal with the cold. As you know, some of the BSL folks,
it's just brutal to survive through this winter in Bloomington. I mean, we can go in the summer when
it's 95% humidity and 104 degrees. I mean, it's a good time. Your flute will be very sharp. That's true.
Yes. Yes. Living in Japan is some sort of life exercise sometimes.
But no, that's great. You know, one other thing I am curious about, because you are also one of the
few teachers, shakuhachi teachers, who teach this instrument to not only just Japanese people like me,
but also you introduce these instruments to the people from around the world. As a teacher, or even
as you are a student, you are taking lessons from various Japanese masters,
Are there any sort of differences in teaching between the sort of Western style of teaching and Japanese
style of teaching? And do you think that sort of has some reflection on the Japanese culture, the teaching?
Yeah, definitely in the West, we've developed the idea of the conservatory. And so we can teach things
systematically.
As Westerners, we love to systemize things. We like to, you know, find the truth of it. We like to identify
the historical moments. Myth, though we have it, we don't relish in myth as much as the East does. So
we're more interested in what is factually true, what is how it is done. I think of a very common German
aesthetic of the 19th century, for example, which is Verktreuer,
probably saying it terribly, but it means faithfulness to the work, which is where we try to not do
anything of our own doing, but we want to see exactly what does the score say and what is the composer's
original intention. This, for example, is so intense in the West that even Czerny, when he would improvise
on a 5-6-4 chord of Beethoven's piano concerto, he was a student of Beethoven, by the way, the critics
said, you don't mess with God's music.
And so I was like, but I studied with him. He did that. But we really love systemizing in the West.
Now in the East, there is a different approach, which is basically, that's what my teacher did. And
so to break away from that's what my teacher did is very difficult, but it's not systematized. Because
every teacher will do it different. Every school has a very different interpretation of even the same
pieces that are shared.
So, and as far as even teaching pedagogically, it's much more of just do what I say and do what I do,
not so much, you know, here's how it's done. Just watch me and then copy. A good example of this is
one of the famous shakuhachi teachers, Yamaguchi Goro, would play the piece for the student the first
week. Then he would let the student play and he would play with them on the second week.
And then on the third week he would sing with the student and on the fourth week he would let the student
play alone. He'd say, good, now polish it. There was not much, basically all the words he said was,
good, now polish it. So not a lot of verbal explanation on the pieces as much as we would in the West.
Yeah, I can relate to that. So I don't know, for those who don't know me, I used to race motorcycle.
And my coach was my dad. And he that doesn't surprise me. Yes. And, you know, he doesn't really say
anything other than the fact do well, do better, do well, do better.
And just this kind of repetition of things is something that is very inherent in Japanese teaching style.
And by the way, if you, after this concert, are interested in learning the shakuhachi, he has a really
great studio.
And not only just in person lessons, he has thousands of YouTube videos that you can watch. And I highly
recommend you all to go watch some of the videos. And if you start wanting to learn this instrument,
it's really accessible. Right? I think it's very accessible. Yeah, yeah. I don't want to say it's difficult,
and then it'll scare them off. Right, that's right.
Since you're here a little earlier, would you show mind maybe just sharing some of the snippets of what
this instrument sounds like? Just a few examples of, you know, technique that you're going to use in
this Hosokawa's piece and maybe explain, you know, because there are, you know, a lot of symbolism with
this instrument in relation to Japanese culture or Japanese nature.
I think there's a question somewhere in there. I can find it. I'll search. The instrument, the shakuhachi
instrument, I like to say it has four voices. This is four voices. The first voice is the chant.
So the chant voice would come from something like in Buddhism, where they would chant a sutra.
So for example, they have the hanyashingo, which is the heart sutra. They have busetsumaka hanyahala
mitashingo, something like this. That kind of voice, more a little bit of monotone holding the sound
of it, but like listening to the color of the vowels change. The second one is the voice of shomyo,
which is the liturgical singing of
Japanese Buddhism sounds something like this. Something like that.
then we'll have the voice of nature, and then we'll have the voice of special effects. So I'll show
you first the simplest one, which is basically usually a single tone, and that sounds like this.
Now we have the voice of Xomyo. The voice of nature.
my favorite, the special effects. So something like that. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's great. Maybe this is a
good moment to shift our conversation to the piece that we're going to play.
Ah, yes. So this is called Autumn Wind by Toshio Hosokawa. She is a living Japanese composer based in
Berlin and also in Japan. Yeah, would you like to maybe talk about the piece and maybe the composer?
Yes, we're doing Autumn Wind in Spring. There's a very interesting reason for that too. Last year, Spring
was calling and we had a baby. And so then we had to move the concert to the Spring because we actually
had our third daughter
on August 21st of last year. So there was no way that we were flying from Japan with a two-month-year-old
to make this happen, so we had to move it. But even though it is Autumn Wind, I think that has to do
more of when it was composed. So Autumn is when he composed it, basically the end of September. And
then he chose Wind, I believe, because it's with the shakuhachi. But the piece really can fit at any
time of the year because it's an expression of nature. And so
How many of you have been hiking out in the woods or camping? Oh, that's great. Sometimes I go into
a city and then no one raises their hands. I'm like, who has been outside? Now, in those hiking times,
one of the things that you get to experience is all the different sounds of the birds, all the different
sounds of different types of winds that go against different types of trees. Every once in a while,
you hear a wild boar, and then you run afterwards.
And then, of course, you get the sound of water and sound of rocks, things kind of cracking and moving
and flowing, and that's exactly what you're going to hear in this piece. You're not going to hear that
one, four, five, one. At least I don't think so. It might be there, but I've never heard it. It is very,
very dense harmonically. There's so much happening. There's a lot of really close notes. I wish we had
the violinist up here to kind of do like the
But like that, when you hear those effects in the music, you're gonna hear like the string players push.
It's called over pressure. They push really hard on the bow and it kind of sounds like it's cracking
or like a creaking door. But it's like the sounds of like a tree almost like, you know, loosening a
limb or something like that. And then you'll hear like the brass players in the back going shh. And
it's not because the other brass players are being loud. I know that's usually the case.
But this is actually because they want to create different types of effects of like the distant ocean
or, you know, wind going through the pines and so on and so forth. So it's like a collage of different
types of sounds that we would hear in nature, but it's just done inside the concert hall with all these
amazing instruments. And then the lone shakuhachi solo, to me, it's like the voice of man.
Sometimes it's in praise of just, wow, God, this thing that you've made for us. How beautiful is this
creation that you've given us? And other times it's like, oh my God, why did you make tsunamis? This
is terrifying. And you get like all of the range of nature in this one piece. It's really quite something.
Yeah, definitely. And this is, you know, obviously going to be a little slightly different than like
a normal, you know, classical music scene, as you said, like, you know, the Western, you know. Yeah,
there's no major chords there. Right. There's no major chords. Yeah. So, but if you just let that notion
just, you know, if you just stay away from the notion for a second, and you just immerse yourself into
this piece, I assure you, you will hear at least something that you can recognize from that work.
in the nature. Yeah, and I don't feel like I have to defend the piece even though it's very avant-garde.
I think that it has to come with just a different approach. Like when we go to a classical music concert,
a lot of times we think, okay, yeah, there's Mozart, there's Beethoven, there's Bach, or Brahms, I love
Brahms. We have this sort of like the same composers that we hear all the time of a wonderful tradition
of harmonic music.
But this just requires a different type of listening, which is you're not trying to find where the person
is wanting to go in their composition. There is no goal. That's the most important thing to know about
this music. There is no goal. So for example, back to the people that were hiking. When you get to the
lake and you're kind of sitting there, what's the goal of sitting at the lake?
sitting at the lake, right? I want to just enjoy what's around me. And, you know, sometimes the caribou
come out, sometimes the birds come out, and you just enjoy whatever sound comes. And this is the same
way this piece is to be enjoyed, is that as you sit back, even close your eyes, you can take a nap,
take a nap by the lake, right?
let the sounds come by and say, yeah, that really reminds me of this experience that I had, and I heard
that same sort of sound out in nature. And I think that's the true intention behind pieces like this.
Absolutely. And you don't really also feel like one, two, three, four, the metric thing. It's in four.
Yeah. But I don't feel it. Right.
So it's really, I think, a different experience that I'm really excited to share. Yeah, it's always
great to share experiences like this, because it's not the type of, my friend runs a radio station,
which is not your grandmother's classical music. This is definitely not your grandmother's classical
music. Definitely. Great. Well, yeah, shall we take a few questions from the audience? Absolutely. I
love questions. Yeah. Yes.
Yeah, I would like to say that it's a neurological condition, but it's not. It's actually the techniques
of the shakuhachi. The movements from left to right is actually how I create vibrato. And it actually
helps to create a vibrato that's much closer to the human voice, where the vibrato goes up and down,
not just down and up like a violin or viola. Great question. Any other questions? Yes, back there.
There's not really much you can do at that point. It's usually, it just is, especially when it's very
hot. Like this room is very dry, right? Not just the, I mean, the acoustics are okay, but I mean like
the actual air itself is dry. The moisture is very low. So that also affects the instruments hard to
reverberate more. But yeah, you just got to find a way to, you know, make it work basically. Any other question?
It's a very beautiful audience, but they're very shy. Okay, I have a question for you. Okay, I'm ready.
How was your experience working with the BSO? Oh, it was awful. I mean, they were so rude, mean. I was
crying after the first rehearsal.
I couldn't even start my car. Yeah, that's right. I saw you crying. Oh, it was wonderful. I mean, we
showed up at this beautiful little bungalow that you guys procured for us, and this lovely gift basket.
And they knew that my daughters were coming, so there's children's books in there and all these sort
of things. It was wonderful. My wife was just elated that the orchestra had omotenashi, that true hospitality.
And of course, in working with all the musicians, you would never think that this is just some community
orchestra. They sound really great. You've got really great players. It was very easy to work with everybody.
They're very responsive. They listen well. You've trained them well. You've trained them well. I didn't
do anything. Yeah. Well, thank you. But I saw that you have a bunch of snacks underneath your stand.
Do you give them snacks when they do good? Do I?
They should know. Something must be in the water. Well, I guess we go out after the rehearsal sometimes.
That's a good snack. Are you paying for everybody? Any other questions before we close off?
Okay, so the question is if somebody coming from the Western world would be easier for a flutist or
a clarinetist, and it's equally difficult. The embouchure that we have for this instrument, it's just
a gigantic hole, so it's more like a rim-blown flute than it is anything else. So the technique and
the embouchure, for more wind players, they try to curve in and go blow into the flute, where we're
blowing over
kind of like over a beer bottle. That's the same kind of technique that we are using for making the
sound. So it's just such a different approach. I don't think that there's, you know, there's an advantage
when you come from any other instrument. Already. Well,
Thank you again, Sean, for coming here for a talk. And thank you all for stopping by a little earlier.
And I'm really excited to share Autumn Wind with Sean and introduce a little bit of a snapshot of my
country. So thank you again. Thank you for having me.
Great to see you all. My name is Ryo Hasegawa. I'm the music director of the BSO, who is very, very,
very happy that finally spring is here in Bloomington. You know, one of the essential items for me to
survive through winter here in Bloomington is this weighted blanket. I cannot sleep without it during
the winter. But in the past couple of days, I don't need it anymore, which tells me that spring is here.
I believe tonight's program has pretty much everything that BSO has to offer to the community of Bloomington.
And it's special for me too, particularly because I get to share a little bit of my musical roots as
a part of this program. And then my hope is that by the time when you get out of the concert hall, there's
something that will stay in the rest of your musical life. So to start off this,
unique program. We are very excited to share the extraordinary talent. The BSO's concerto competition
winner, Ella Hightower, will play this fearless, energetic, devotional violin concerto movement number
one. So please give a warm welcome to Ella on the stage for her BSO debut.
next piece. You know many of us probably had had an experience of suddenly travel back in time to a
very specific moment of our lives and it might be something you know from yesterday or from last year
from five years ago ten years ago even sixty years ago but it's often triggered by something very small
you know certain smell or certain scenery just you just happen to see or certain words that people say certain
piece of music or even certain wind that certain way that wind moves through the air. And when that
happens, it's almost like a time travel. And it usually comes unexpectedly. And those moments sort of
show us a small snapshot of your previous life. And those moments are typically very quiet and simple
and beautiful.
So several moments in the piece that you're about to hear bring back to me something very personal,
yet very ordinary moment that I shared with my grandfather when I was six years old. And I'm really
grateful and humbled to be able to share that personal moment with you and with VSO and with my friend,
soloist Sean Tyrew Head.
Sean is a meiyoshi han, which is this highest rank, honorary rank of this tradition of shakuhachi, the
bamboo flute. He and I met maybe several years ago. We worked on a few projects together since then,
and this is my privilege to make music with him for the first time. And he's actually my own shakuhachi
teacher as well.
So I'm going to introduce him and bring him on stage and have him talk about the piece and instruments
a little bit. So without further ado, please welcome Sean Tyrehead.
Wow, Biola, you didn't tell me the audience was going to be this beautiful. Thank you so much for having
me here. It's such a wonderful pleasure to share the traditional Japanese music as well as new compositions
for the shakuhachi and of course to be with my friend here, Biola, with this awesome theater and wonderful
musicians. It's just a great pleasure in general.
I can answer it for you if you'd like. It's good that it's now instead of the silence. The piece that
we're about to hear, Autumn Wind, is not like most of the pieces that you probably have heard before.
It's not going to be filled with Western style harmonies of major and minor. You might not even have
a recognizable melody that you'll be able to take home with you. But what you will get is
the unadulterated sound of nature interpreted through instruments. Such sounds would be a sound as like
the overpressure effect on the violin. And I was wondering if I could ask you to give us that overpressure
effect. Ah yes, the language of my people. Now that might just sound like noise to you, but what I hear
is I hear the creaking oak in nature.
And if I hear the brass players give us that shush, can we get a little bit of the shush? That's not
them telling me to be quiet. That is the wind effect. And those are sort of the sounds that you're going
to hear. So you could try to find a melody. And there certainly are melodic fragments that are throughout
the piece, but that's not the point of the piece. The point of the piece, rather, is that the orchestra
is going to give us the sound
the sound of nature in the shakuhachi will give you the sound of man's voice, praying and thanking God
for creation and how beautiful things are, and also asking for help when nature seems to fight back.
And so I hope that you enjoy this wonderful experience of sound and tone and color by Toshio Hosokawa,
Autumn Wind.
Truly, that was like the best we've ever played it. That was amazing, guys. Seriously, that was so good.
I still got goosebumps. So now for something very different. I arranged a children's song for a little
encore. So this is a piece called Nanatsu no Ko, which means seven little children. I guess this is
like a Freudian thing that I want seven children. I have three right now.
I'll have to convince my wife later. But it's a beautiful little tune, and I just would love to share
that with you all for the love that I have for my children, love that I have for playing this instrument,
and the new love I have for Bloomington.
So the piece that you just heard is called Flower of Mandala. It's based on the Buddhist story. It's
a tone poem composed by Kosaku Yamada. Yamada was one of the first Japanese composers who studied abroad
in Europe to learn European music. And he brought back European tradition to Japan, and he had a huge
impact on Japanese music after Meiji restoration.
And he was largely influenced by music of Richard Strauss when he was studying in Germany. So you probably
heard some of the, you know, hint of Strauss music, and that's one of the reasons why I paired these
Japanese masters with Strauss tonight for this program, because there's so many connections philosophically,
musically. Yeah, so next,
Two songs that we're going to present are the songs by Richard Strauss. First one is Alice Ellen by
metal soprano Daniel Long, and that is followed by Morgan, sung by soprano C.E. Young. So hope you enjoy
it. So please welcome Daniel Long on the stage.
of tonight's program. We are once going back to Richard Strauss music and with the scenes from their
Rose and Cavalier. At the heart of this opera is almost like a meditation on time. How people grow,
how love changes, and how sometimes the most generous act is simply to let someone go.
So we're doing two scenes tonight, one, and it's both sort of the beginning and the ending of this emotional
journey. We're gonna do first the presentation of Rose, this duet, where the young couples meet for
the first time, and that is followed by the closing trio, where the three voices intertwine with each
other in the
in the most transcending ending in all opera, in my opinion. So, yes, let's do the presentation of Ross
and let's welcome back Daniel Long and C.E. Young.
This is like a dream for Conductor to be able to do this Strauss music with fantastic singers. So I'm
absolutely all. So before we do the very, very last final trio, I'd like to thank our partner for this
concert tonight, Asian Culture Center, for bringing Sean to this concert and Sean to Bloomington. And
I would also like to thank BSO musicians for your willingness to explore this program
and with a bit of my personal musical roots, and I'm really grateful for your openness. And of course,
I would like to thank you all for coming here tonight. And as you saw, there's a lot that BSO can offer
to the Bloomington, and I would really love for you to consider being a part of this journey, a part
of our family, through simply just donating for us to thrive,
Or you can play in the orchestra. Yes, you can. Or you can tell your friends and family about our upcoming
concert on May 16th, featuring 100-plus singers on our chorus on Beethoven's monumental Ninth Symphony.
Yeah, you don't want to miss that. And it's going to be at Musical Arts at IU Mac.
So again, thank you again so much for coming and letting us share music tonight. Let me introduce one
more additional soprano playing, singing the role of Marshaline, Rachel Spodek.