Hitomi Honda

Composed by Jun Watanabe – Shakuhachist and Composer

“This work was premiered by these performers at the July 2025 performance, “A Special Performance of Ballet, Piano, and Shakuhachi in Matsumoto — Letters to Our Hometown.”

The piece was inspired by the winter Northern Alps as seen from Taira in Matsumoto City, the hometown shared by pianist Hitomi Honda and myself.

From the season of longing for spring, we imagined an ensemble in which the blessings of nature circulate and then soar upward into the vast sky in a dancing motion. From this impression, Ms. Honda and I chose the title Mai (“Dance” / “Circling Motion”).” The shakuhachi solo at the beginning and the piano solo in the middle section are basically left to the performer’s own sensitivity and interpretation, allowing complete freedom of expression.
Performances using other instruments are also very welcome.

For those interested, we can provide sheet music containing only the single-line melody and chord symbols at cost.
Please feel free to contact us at the email address below.

Jun Watanabe
Email: junw_shakuhachi@icloud.com

Composer : Scott Wollschleger

Cory Bracken, Robby Bowen – vibraphones

Karl Larson, Hitomi Honda – pianos

Purchase score: https://www.eamdc.com/psny/composers/…

Recorded live: February 12, 2016 The Firehouse Space Brooklyn, New York

Composer : Akio Mokuno

“An algorithmic metaphor of the imaginary patterns of falling leaves, the genesis for this piece emerged from the drifts of a shower of leaves. From those swirling leaves grew associations of the gravitational forces of distorted time in space, culminating in numerous fallings, disparate timings, and various complex motions”