On today's episode of music/Maker with Tyler Kline, Tyler is joined by composer Dai Fujikura.
Born in Osaka and based in London since moving to the UK at fifteen, Dai Fujikura is one of the most prolific and wide-ranging composers working today. Winner of the Silver Lion at the Venice Biennale, the Ivor Novello and Royal Philharmonic Society Awards, and the Paul Hindemith Prize, among many others, his music spans orchestral works, chamber music, opera, and collaborations across jazz, experimental pop, and improvisation. His operas include Solaris, The Gold-Bug, A Dream of Armageddon, and the forthcoming The Great Wave, about the life of Katsushika Hokusai. He runs his own label, Minabel Records, and serves as Artistic Director of the Born Creative Festival at Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre.
In this conversation, Dai and Tyler trace a journey that begins with a boy in Osaka secretly composing while his mother was out of the house, and winds through a scholarship to a British boarding school at fifteen, years of hustling musicians at Trinity College of Music into playing his work for the price of a pint, and a friendship with Ryuichi Sakamoto that lasted until Sakamoto's death. They also get into how a piece reveals itself — or sometimes stubbornly refuses to — the DIY spirit behind Minabel Records, what traditional Japanese instruments mean to someone who first encountered them not in Japan but at Darmstadt, and why a stiff neck at the end of a long day at the desk doesn't mean you wrote anything good.
Learn more about Dai and his music at https://www.daifujikura.com/
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