Midori Takada () (born December 21, 1951) is a Japanese composer and percussionist. She has been described as a pioneer of

ambient Ambient or ambiance or ambience may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Ambiancé'', an unreleased experimental film * ''Ambient'' (novel), a novel by Jack Womack Music and sound * Ambience (sound recording), also known as atmospheres or backgr ...

and

minimalist In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-mi ...

music.

Early career and Mkwaju Ensemble

Takada graduated from

Tokyo University of the Arts or is a school of art and music in Japan. Located in Ueno Park, it also has facilities in Toride, Ibaraki, Yokohama, Kanagawa, Kitasenju and Adachi, Tokyo. The university has trained artists in the fields of painting, sculpture, crafts, inter ...

and began her musical career as a percussionist with the Berlin RIAS Symphonie-Orchester in the mid-1970s. She became dissatisfied with the Western classical musical tradition and returned to Japan to study African drumming and Indonesian

gamelan Gamelan (; ; , ; ) is the traditional musical ensemble, ensemble music of the Javanese people, Javanese, Sundanese people, Sundanese, and Balinese people, Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussion instrument, per ...

, as well as the early

minimalism In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-mi ...

Steve Reich Stephen Michael Reich ( ; born October 3, 1936) is an American composer best known as a pioneer of minimal music in the mid to late 1960s. Reich's work is marked by its use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm, and canons. Reich descr ...

and

Terry Riley Terrence Mitchell Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist music, minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his work became notab ...

. She channeled these influences into the group Mkwaju Ensemble which she formed with

Joe Hisaishi , known professionally as , is a Japanese composer, musical director, conductor and pianist, known for over 100 film scores and solo albums dating back to 1981. Hisaishi's music has been known to explore and incorporate different genres, inclu ...

, Yoji Sadanari, Junko Arase and

Hideki Matsutake Hideki Matsutake (born August 12, 1951 in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan) is a Japanese composer, arranger, and computer programmer. He is known for his pioneering work in electronic music and particularly music programming, as the assist ...

. Mkwaju Ensemble released two albums in 1981, ''Mkwaju'' and ''Ki-Motion'', and she also performed on recordings by

Toru Takemitsu TORU or Toru may refer to: *TORU, spacecraft system *Tōru (given name), Japanese male given name *Toru, Pakistan, village in Mardan District of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan *Tõru Tõru is a village in Saaremaa Parish, Saare County in western Es ...

and Satoshi Ashikawa around this time.

''Through The Looking Glass''

Takada recorded her first solo LP ''Through The Looking Glass'' in three days in early 1983. She performs all parts on the album, with diverse instrumentation including

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

marimba The marimba ( ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the mari ...

gong A gongFrom Indonesian language, Indonesian and ; ; zh, c=鑼, p=luó; ; ; ; ; is a percussion instrument originating from Southeast Asia, and used widely in Southeast Asian and East Asian musical traditions. Gongs are made of metal and ...

reed organ The pump organ or reed organ is a type of organ that uses free reeds to generate sound, with air passing over vibrating thin metal strips mounted in a frame. Types include the pressure-based harmonium, the suction reed organ (which employs a va ...

, bells,

ocarina The ocarina (otherwise known as a potato flute) is a wind musical instrument; it is a type of vessel flute. Variations exist, but a typical ocarina is an enclosed space with four to twelve finger holes and a mouthpiece that projects from the bo ...

vibraphone The vibraphone (also called the vibraharp) is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using Percussion mallet, mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone ...

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

and glass

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a cola soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. In 2013, Coke products were sold in over 200 countries and territories worldwide, with consumers drinking more than 1.8 billion company beverage servings ...

bottles. The album was not commercially popular upon release, but became a collector's item in the late 2010s thanks to online sharing through

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

and other sites. The album was reissued on vinyl and CD in 2017 and has been hailed as "mesmerizing" and an "ambient minimalist masterpiece".

Pitchfork A pitchfork or hay fork is an agricultural tool used to pitch loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. It has a long handle and usually two to five thin tines designed to efficiently move such materials. The term is also applie ...

awarded the album 'Best new reissue' and it became the second best-selling release of 2017 on

Discogs Discogs ( ; short for " discographies") is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. Database contents are user-generated, and described in ''T ...

Further collaborations, ''Tree of Life'' and recent career

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s Takada performed in various ensembles, composed for theater director

Tadashi Suzuki is a Japanese avant-garde theatre director, writer, and philosopher. He is the founder and director of the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT), and organizer of Japan’s first international theatre festival (Toga Festival). With American director ...

and taught at various universities in Tokyo. She also performed with the

improvisational Improvisation, often shortened to improv, is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. The origin of the word itself is in the Latin "improvisus", which literally means un-foreseen. Improvis ...

group Ton-Klami and collaborated with pianist

Masahiko Satoh is a Japanese jazz pianist, composer and arranger. Early life Satoh was born in Tokyo on 6 October 1941. His mother was Setsu and his father, who owned small businesses, was Yoshiaki Satoh. The house that his family moved into in 1944 contained ...

(''Lunar Cruise'') and Ghanese percussionist Kakraba Lobi (''African Percussion Meeting''), but did not record another solo album until ''Tree of Life'' in 1999. There was a resurgence of interest in Takada's work following the reissue of ''Through The Looking Glass'' and she has since performed extensively across Europe, the United States, Australia, Israel and Japan. She also recorded two new collaborative releases, ''Le Renard Bleu'' with electronic artist

Lafawndah Yasmine Dubois, known professionally as Lafawndah (also known as KUKII) is a singer, songwriter, producer and director. Early life Lafawndah was raised in Paris, France, and is of Egyptian, Iranian, and English descent. She has lived across t ...

and ''An Eternal Moment'' with saxophonist Kang Tae Hwan. In 2020, Takada was approached by filmmaker Otto Bell who wanted to use ''Through The Looking Glass'' as the soundtrack for his documentary, '' The Toxic Pigs of Fukushima''. Takada instead decided to compose a new original score which she performs for the film.

Discography

* ''Through The Looking Glass'' (1983) * ''Nebula'' (1987), with

Mayumi Miyata is a Japanese player of the '' shō'', a traditional Japanese mouth organ. Miyata was born on April 1, 1954, in Tokyo and graduated from the Kunitachi College of Music, where she majored in piano. While in school, she began studying ''gagaku'' ...

* ''Lunar Cruise '' (1990), with

* ''Tree of Life'' (1999) * ''Le Renard Bleu'' (2018), with

* ''An Eternal Moment'' (2019), with Kang Tae Hwan

Theatrical work

* Musical performance in ''

Electra Electra, also spelt Elektra (; ; ), is one of the most popular Greek mythology, mythological characters in tragedies.Evans (1970), p. 79 She is the main character in two Greek tragedies, ''Electra (Sophocles play), Electra'' by Sophocles and ''Ele ...

'', directed by

and

Satoshi Miyagi is a Japanese Theatre Director, in Kanda, Tokyo. Miyagi studied aesthetics at Tokyo University. He had a strong interest in Rakugo Japanese comic talk since his teens. He was awarded the Theatre Pasta Theatre Awards in 2007 for his excellent wo ...

, first performed in 1996, ACM Theatre,

Art Tower Mito is an arts complex in Mito, Ibaraki, Japan. It opened in 1990 as part of the centennial celebrations of the municipality of Mito. There is a concert hall that seats 680, a theater for up to 636, a contemporary art gallery, and a landmark tower, ...

, Japan * Musical performance in ''

King Lear ''The Tragedy of King Lear'', often shortened to ''King Lear'', is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It is loosely based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his ...

'', directed by Tadashi Suzuki.

Film Score

* '' The Toxic Pigs of Fukushima'', 2020

References

External links

Midori Takada profile
at Ground Control Touring
Midori Takada profile
at Qu Junktions
Midori Takada
at

{{DEFAULTSORT:Takada, Midori 1951 births Classical percussionists Composers from Tokyo Japanese classical composers Japanese contemporary classical composers Japanese percussionists Japanese women classical composers Living people NoBusiness Records artists