Steven Kazuo Takasugi (b. Los Angeles, 1960) studied classical piano from an early age. Having begun important early studies in composition with Noah Creshevsky and Bunita Marcus, he would later begin lessons with Feldman. In 1985, he met the composer Roger Reynolds and applied for entrance into the University of California San Diego, where he would resume lessons with Feldman for a brief time before the composer's death in 1987.
Iridescent Uncertainy (a computer assisted electro-acoustic tape piece) is composed using thousand of pre-recorded samples of Koto (with traditional and non-traditional strings) , Shamisen, Hardang Fele (Norwegian Hardanger Violin) , and Cello. In many ways, this piece was an attempt to locate negotiation between critical thought and thought which might invite or accommodate for phenomenal instances. I wanted criticism to be radicalized again, reinvigorated. It was an attempt at self-reflective composition that would resist the reactionary tendencies of its newly won security, which is for me always the danger of reflection within distance.
Masahiro MIWA was born in 1958 in Tokyo. His activity is manifold. He is active in collaboration with various artists, not to mention his main field, composition. He has released his CDs including "The Little Red Riding Hood Accompanist", "Songs from the East"(Fontec), "Ascending Music in the end of the century" and published his book "Music Theory in the Computer Age".
"18 sai-no shi (poems/death of 18-year-old)" was composed in memory of a girl, who left poems written in three notebooks and put an end to her own life. Its performance is done by four hands which play cluster sounds with piano and two contact speakers which are settled inside the piano. A laptop computer on the piano gives directions to two pianists, and at the same time carries out the reading aloud verses which the girl left and the playback of digitally recorded soprano singing.
