CIPHER-21

2021

More a piece of performance art that incorporates composition than strictly “music,” this piece was one of the Yoneda Prize winners of the Keiko Yoneda International Composers’ Competition. It was premiered by Inoue Satoko, Sakamoto Kota, and Mizobuchi Kanae in Tokyo, Japan in December 2021. In this exhibition, the committee asked composers to create pieces dedicated to the life and works of fictitious historical composer, Keiko Yoneda. From the committee:

Keiko Yoneda (1912-1992) is an imaginative figure created by Théâtre Musical Tokyo (TMT)1. According to TMT, Yoneda wrote in her journal in the year of her death: "An artist is exiled and marginal, and amateur and the author of a language that tries to speak the truth to power."

As a follower of Yonedas’ legacy, the KYICC 2021 Committee opens the call to allcomposers: whether professional composer, amateur composer, or the “author of a language” who can convert the definition of composer.

The rules of this competition were strict: pitches were limited to C, E, and G, and the instrumentation was limited to soprano voice, tuba, and upright piano.

Seeking to fulfill the rules while creating something that would adequately honor Yoneda’s memory, I created a piece consisting of a code for relaying important anti-government logistical messages in public transmissions disguised as musical performance. Using the three given pitches, I created an alphabet inspired by Morse Code and a syntax inspired by HTML. The score demonstrates how to construct a unique message, and also provides a fictional transmission to demonstrate how the message might be accurately applied. In the case of the premiere, the performers opted to create their own secret transmission relevant to the history of the American military’s occupation of the area near the performance space. In performance, it is encouraged to betray the meaning the transmission in any way that does not obfuscate the legibility of the message by taking great liberties with regard to orchestration, mood, and affect.