As part of Ensemble Meitar’s CEME Festival, I took part in Georg Friedrich Haas’s composition masterclass in Tel-Aviv this winter. At the end of that week I had the opportunity to record a new piece performed with violinist Marco Fusi.
8 Haiku was my way of dealing with early works from the tradition of concise poetics. It is part of a more general process I plan to continue in a collection of condensed pieces for voice.
The texts for this composition were English versions of haiku by Bashō and Buson from Robert Haas’s book The Essential Haiku – versions of Bashō, Buson, & Issa (1994). I found there several haiku that were overtly musical, and although they did not need any music to be added, I felt an impulse to compose my impression of them in sound nonetheless.
The score:
A slightly lacking recording of three of the haiku is presented below. When I’ll have the higher quality audio recordings made I will update here with those better versions.
