On the centennial of the birth of artist Toshiko Takaezu (1922–2011), The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum announces a major touring retrospective and monograph centered on her work and life. This will be the first nationally touring retrospective of Takaezu’s work in twenty years. To coincide with the exhibition the Museum will co-publish a new monograph with Yale University Press.

Thematic installations based on exhibitions she presented during her lifetime will include displays inspired by her Star Series, moons, Gaea and Devastation Forest installations, and garden seats. Also included will be an interactive installation and concert program of new works by composer Leilehua Lanzilotti (finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in music) centered on the hidden element of sound in Takaezu’s works. Takaezu filled many of her closed forms with “rattles,” encouraging viewers to navigate their unseen interior volumes through sound.

Dai Fujikura is writing me a viola concerto inspired by Polynesian wayfinding / star navigation. The ensemble version will premiere on the Born Creative Festival in Tokyo in September 2020, and the full orchestral version with Phoenix Symphony under Tito Muñoz in November 2020! Ensemble Échappe will support the New York premiere of the ensemble version in Spring 2021. Read more about the composer and the inspiration for the concerto here.

The 20/19 Project supports the creation of new viola sonatas by Andrew Norman, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, and Scott Wollschleger, as well as recordings of, publications about, and educational resources for the works. Read more about the inspiration for the project and the composers here.

Click here for information about Shaken Not Stuttered, my free online resource demonstrating extended techniques for strings, and ongoing updates on both original content and links to works which focus on nontraditional playing techniques.

Highlights: Harmonics, Waveforms, and the Overtone Series, liner notes for in manus tuas, program notes for Project Q: Multidimensional Soundscapes (Saariaho, Young, Lanzilotti, Ueno), and an essay in memory of Boulez.