Taro Ishida composed the music for the "Prayer of Besshin: The Horyuji Kondo Mural Exhibition" held at the Chinretsukan, The University Art Museum, Tokyo University of the Arts in 2014.

This was an interesting exhibit that included a reproduction and animation of the actual dimensions of the mural paintings in the Golden Hall of Horyuji Temple, which were destroyed by fire in 1949.

The museum offered me to compose two pieces of music. One was based on gagaku music, and the other was based on Syomyo.

Gagaku is basically an orchestra-like ensemble of a large group of musicians, but going back in time, it seems that there were also solo performances of Gaku-biwa.

I was fortunate enough to hear a performance by Nakamura Kahoru, a master Gaku-biwa player who performs solo in Japan today, and I thought I would like to use this as the basis for my composition.

 

Gagaku, which is played by a large group of people, can be compared to a person who wears many layers of luxurious kimono.

The title of this piece, "Bone Song," is also an indication of my desire to create music that is like a skeleton without its clothing and without its flesh.

The other is "Banshoga".

This music is based on Shomyo, but as you can see from the instrumentation of song, tuba, drums, and synthesizer, it is far from the original music.

 

Here is a shot of the recording session.

 

 

Both songs are available on
Spotify  / Itunes / AppleMusic
You can listen to them on Youtube.