Minoru Miki's Koto Futae, written in 1976, like much of Miki's music, is typically regarded as the work of a conservative contemporary composer. There are many sonorities which, to our Western ears, seem to indicate the delicate inclusion of certain modal/pantonal characteristics of the Western 20th-century literature of Debussy and Bartok, among others: quartal harmonies, parallel open fifths, the diatonic scale as the basis for vertical harmony, etc. A careful analysis of this piece and a comparison with a standard work of the kinutamono tradition (Godanginuta, composed mid-mineteenth century) demonstrates that this is not a conservative "contemporary" Western work which happens to be written for traditional Japanese instruments. Miki's treatment of register, mode, melodic elaboration, heterophony, counterpoint and rhythm, as well as his inclusion of techniques such as kata, kakite and jo-ha-kyu are in opposition to this Western interpretation. The expanded harmonic and rhythmic pallette of Koto Futae does not reveal the inclusion of 20th Century techniques, but rather an elaborated and developed vocabulary which builds directly on the Japanese chamber music tradition.
Miki is often viewed as a conservative in comparison to other Japanese composers such as Takemitsu, whose technical arsenal incorporates Western techniques drawn from the post-tonal canon. The close comparison of Koto Futae and Godanginuta indicates that Miki's compositional aesthetic is, rather, a dramatic expansion of a traditional language. This view marks Miki as a progressive composer, not unlike a figure such as Brahms and one whose music celebrates and reaffirms Japan's pre-Western instrumental tradition.
Edward Smaldone is a composer whose music has been performed in the United States, Canada, Europe and China. Awards for his music include the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Greenwall Foundation Commission Grant and residency fellowships at the Charles Ives Center for American Music and the Yaddo Artists Colony. Recent commissions include the White Oak Dance Project ("Pergolesi"), Queens Symphony Orchestra ("Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra"), violinist Victor Schultz ("Suite"), pianist Michael Boriskin ("Transformational Etudes") and Talujon ("Three Episodes for Percussion Quartet"). Other notable performances include the Contemporary Chamber Players (Chicago), The American New Music Festival (Sacramento), the Denver Chamber Orchestra and the Memphis Symphony. Recordings can be heard on the New Music Manitoba and New World Record labels. Dr. Smaldone holds a Ph.D. in composition from the City University of New York. His published scholarly work includes analyses of the music of Schoenberg, Takemitsu and traditional Japanese music. Since 1990 he has been assistant professor at Queens College's Aaron Copland School of Music.