Performing at the 2013 Green Show Friday, June 7.
This is their first season in the OSF Green Show.
Exotic, contemporary, hybrid worlds, with Western flute and Japanese koto.
New Zealand flutist Tessa Brinckman has been described by critics as a “flutist of chameleon-like gifts” and "virtuoso elegance" (Gramophone), an “excellent...flutist” (Willamette Week) and "highlight of Portland” (New Music Box), who "play(s) her instrument with great beauty and eloquence” (Music Matters New Zealand). She enjoys a versatile career, having worked in many classical music ensembles, concert series, commercial and theatrical settings in the United States, South Africa and New Zealand, including OSF's The White Snake in 2012. In demand as a collaborator, Ms. Brinckman currently works with contemporary flute/percussion duo Caballito Negro, and plays traverso with Portland’s new baroque ensemble Risonanti. She has received local and international grants to present unique historic and contemporary chamber music programs, and has premiered numerous works by American composers. Ms. Brinckman's composition for flute and string trio, "Glass Sky", can be found on the critically acclaimed CD, Glass Sky, (which includes koto-player Mitsuki Dazai) and is featured in the South African documentary, Inner Landscapes, about Outsider artist Helen Martins, and her Owl House creation. She serves on the faculties of Southern Oregon University and Rogue Community College, and teaches master classes in the USA and abroad.
Master koto-player and Tokyo native, Mitsuki Dazai, has performed throughout Japan, the USA and Europe. Fluent in many musical languages, she has collaborated with a diverse group of artists, including Tessa Brinckman (flutes), James Nyoraku Schlefer, Kaoru Kakizakai, Kazushi Matama, Larry Tyrrell, Peter Hill, Teruo Furuya (shakuhachi), Craig Green, Joe Ross (guitar), Curtis Patterson, Masayo Ishigure, Ryuko Mizutani, Shoko Hikage (koto), Joe Powers (harmonica) and Radim Zenkl (mandolin). Now living in Oregon, she was featured by OPB (Oregon Public Broadcast) on their Oregon ArtBeat program in February 2010, and enjoys presenting educational workshops and lectures, including at the University of Oregon and Marylhurst University. Her first solo album Autumn was released in 2007, and her second CD worked with Michael Hoppe was released in 2010. Mitsuki is a graduate of Japan's renowned Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo. Originally majoring Western Classical vocal studies, she discovered traditional Japanese music while studying ethnomusicology, and then pursued advanced studies in contemporary koto at Sawai Koto Conservatory in Tokyo, with modern Koto Masters Tadao Sawai and world renowned Kazue Sawai.
Tessa Brinckman & Mitsuki Dazai on Community: While Mitsuki and I are steeped in the Western and Japanese classical traditions, we both resist pigeon-holing. As foreign-born artists, and as independent women forging our own musical paths, we enjoy redefining what is "classical", what is "Western" and what is "Japanese". We specialize in hybrid forms and techniques, choosing cutting-edge repertoire that soothes and surprises audiences, while borrowing from familiar traditions around the world. We like to reach out to any audience communities who will have us. It's easy for us to find connections between what we are presenting to how a particular community might define itself.
www.tessabrinckman.com