Yoshié Ichige - Japanese Composer and Singer

A Wunderkind and Her Origins - A Portrait

One of the few Japanese composers whose works can also be experienced in performance in Europe is Yoshié Ichige. The "wunderkind composer" (quotation from a daily Austrian newspaper) has performed her compositions world wide with great success. She composed her first songs at the age of four, and her earlier works (written during her 11th and 12th years) are included today, and enthusiastically received, in Ichige¹s concert repertoire. As a singer she is also the ideal interpretor of her compositions; this combination of artistic abilities and the resulting harmonic consistency of her performance may be a reason for her international success. On the one hand, her compositions are deeply rooted in Japanese tradition, and its accompanying spiritual sense; on the other hand their expressive form is new and individualistic.

While some composers look in all external directions of style for inspiration and new ways to express themselves, Ichige finds these in sound pictures which she¹s carried inside since her childhood and left to grow: Tea gardens and mandarin groves, the play of the sunset¹s colors on the sea in front of the majestic Mount Fuji - The Strong Impression of Nature, which she regards as her most important "teacher of composition" - were at that time imprinted deeply within her being. After many years of studies and World travel, during which Ichige got to know the most diverse musical sound languages, it seems that this potential - this source of an artist overflowing with ideas and productive energy - has not been exhausted.

Ichige's musical talent was recognized at an early age and encouraged: As a small child, she was already taking piano and organ lessons, and had a listening and solfeggio education. She learned her singing technique, necessary for performing her sound painting, after her studies at the Tohogakuen High School for Music in Tokyo and at the "Wiener Musikhochschule" (Diploma: Singing and Opera, judged by professors Rössel-Majdan and Bülter-Marell). After this, she continued her professional singing studies at the Studio Internazionale di Belcanto led by professor Toma Popescu, and assisted Franco Corelli in 1991 at the Summer seminar for opera singers. Vienna then became her favorite dwelling place, a type of second home between concert tours and related activities (Ichige also applies her artistic quality in the cultural fellowship of, international cultural exchange).

 

Concerts:

Wiener Konzerthaus, Palais Schwarzenberg - Vienna, Palais Ausersperg - Vienna, Palais Ferstel - Vienna, Schloß Belverdere - Vienna, Schloß Schönbrunn, Opera Kairo, Neues Schloß Stuttgart, Cowell Theatre San Francisco, Holywell Music Room Oxford, Hradschin - Praque, Planetarium - Praque, Laterna Magika - Prague, Goetheanum Basel.

Her opera "The Magic Veil" was composed for the ocassion of the 120th anniversary of the Austrian-Japanese Friendship in 1989 and was premiered in Vienna¹s Palais Auersperg.