Yoshimasa "Yoshi" Wada (11 November 1943 – 18 May 2021) was a

Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers, and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental performance art, art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finishe ...

-related Japanese

sound art Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary Time-based media, time-based Artistic medium, medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in Cross-genr ...

installation artist and new music musician who lived in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

before moving to

San Francisco, California San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

Life

Born in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, after moving to

Wada joined the

movement in 1968 after meeting

George Maciunas George Maciunas (; ; November 8, 1931 Kaunas – May 9, 1978 Boston, Massachusetts) was a Lithuanian American artist, art historian, and art organizer who was the founding member and central coordinator of Fluxus, an international community of ...

. Wada then studied music with

La Monte Young La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer, musician, and performance artist recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers and a central figure in Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music. He is best k ...

and the North Indian vocalist

Pandit Pran Nath Pandit Pran Nath (Devanagari: पंडित प्राणनाथ) (3 November 1918 – 13 June 1996) was an Indian classical singer and master of the Kirana gharana singing style. Promoting traditional raga principles, Nath exerted ...

. His works often incorporated the use of drone and were usually performed at a very high volume that allowed for the

overtones An overtone is any resonant frequency above the fundamental frequency of a sound. (An overtone may or may not be a harmonic) In other words, overtones are all pitches higher than the lowest pitch within an individual sound; the fundamental i ...

within the sound to be heard clearly. Wada frequently performed his own compositions, which featured a certain freedom of

improvisation 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 ...

, on Scottish highland bagpipe and with his voice. He also employed a number of homemade instruments, including "pipe horns" (very long horn-type instruments made from metal

plumbing Plumbing is any system that conveys fluids for a wide range of applications. Plumbing uses piping, pipes, valves, piping and plumbing fitting, plumbing fixtures, Storage tank, tanks, and other apparatuses to convey fluids. HVAC, Heating and co ...

piping Within industry, piping is a system of pipes used to convey fluids (liquids and gases) from one location to another. The engineering discipline of piping design studies the efficient transport of fluid. Industrial process piping (and accomp ...

) that he performed, for example, in the ''Public Arts International/Free Speech'' series in 1979,
''Public Arts International/Free Speech'' catalogue at Princeton University Library as well as large reed instruments involving multiple

bagpipe Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, No ...

-like pipes connected to a large

air compressor An air compressor is a machine that takes ambient air from the surroundings and discharges it at a higher pressure. It is an application of a gas compressor and a Pneumatics, pneumatic device that energy conversion, converts mechanical power (from ...

. Due to their appearance, Wada named these reef instruments the Alligator and the Elephantine Crocodile. Wada was also known for his mechanical and robotic installations. In

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

in the mid-1990s, he performed a whimsically entitled piece, ''Lament for the Rise and Fall of Handy-Horn'', in which several compressed-air "auditory flare" signals used for nautical emergencies (the "Handy Horn" brand named in the title) were sounded for the duration of their usefulness, giving rise to an alarmingly high-decibel air-pressure environment and charged

psychoacoustic Psychoacoustics is the branch of psychophysics involving the scientific study of the perception of sound by the human auditory system. It is the branch of science studying the psychological responses associated with sound including noise, speech, ...

environment.

Discography

* 1981: ''Lament For The Rise And Fall Of The Elephantine Crocodile'' (

India Navigation India Navigation was an American record company and independent record label that specialized in avant-garde jazz in the 1970s and 1980s. It was founded by Bob Cummins, a corporate lawyer who helped jazz musicians with legal matters. Its catalogu ...

) * 1985: ''Off the Wall'' (

Free Music Production Free Music Production (FMP) is a German record label that specialises in free jazz. Origins FMP originated from the New Artists Guild, which was an informal cooperative of musicians in the mid-1960s. In 1968, The New Artists Guild sponsored the T ...

) * 2008: ''The Appointed Cloud'' (EM/Omega Point) * 2009: ''Earth Horns with Electronic Drone'' CD/3LP (EM/Omega Point) * 2012: ''Singing in Unison'' 3LP (EM) * 2018: ''Frkwys 14 - Nue'' (With Tashi Wada & friends) (RVNG Intl.)

References

Sources

*Johnson, Tom (1989). ''The Voice of New Music: New York City 1972-1982 -- A Collection of Articles Originally Published by the

Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Ma ...

''. Eindhoven, Netherlands: Het Apollohuis. . Available for free download at

External links

Article from ''The New York Times''
1985
Yoshi Wada on BandcampObituary on Resident Advisor
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wada, Yoshi 1943 births 2021 deaths 20th-century American composers 20th-century American male musicians 20th-century Japanese composers 20th-century Japanese male musicians 21st-century American composers 21st-century American male musicians 21st-century Japanese composers 21st-century Japanese male musicians American installation artists American male composers Fluxus India Navigation artists Japanese artists Japanese male composers Japanese emigrants to the United States Minimalist composers Pupils of Pran Nath (musician)