Edition: V
Bio/Studies
Keitaro Takahashi is a composer, video artist and interface designer born in Tokyo, Japan in 1986.
He received his bachelor of arts degree from Kunitachi College of Music, Tokyo, Japan, in 2009 and M.A(2011) and MASP(2013). of music composition in Basel Musik-Akademie der Stadt Basel. He studied composition and computer music with Professors Takayuki Rai, Cort Lippe, and Eric Oña and computer programming with Mr. Shu Matsuda. Keitaro is a member of the DIPS (Digital Image Processing with Sound) development team. He is also developing an MPM (Music with Video Sequence) application with Professor Rumi Hiraga at the Tshukuba University of Technology. MPM helps the hearing impaired have a musical experience with supplemental visual information. Currently, Keitaro Takahashi is at the Basel (Switzerland) Musik-Akademie working on his Ph.D between Basel and Porto in composition and Technology of Art with Professor Eric Oña.
Career
His musical identity has been influenced mainly by the cultures and philosophies derived from East Asian countries. However, at the same time, he has an intention to employ European methods of music creation, expression, and composition, along the axis of time and structure on his creations. These european elements have important role in building his own music language. One of his important goal in his creative activity is to integrate East Asian and European cultures in order to establish a new concept for music creation. That being said, he is not willing to just bring East Asian music into European music, nor simulate East Asian music by using European methods. However, he is willing to integrate between the two by employing instrumental, electronic, or environmental sounds in his music according to the way of East Asian philosophies and concepts.
Notes on the Musma Composition
“Aquadimensions” for wind quintet was composed with the theme “water” which was given by MUSMA IV festival in Ankara. The piece consists of total seven movements and the each of it represents the four states of water “Solid, Liquid, Gas, and Plasma” and these three transitions “Melting, Vaporization,, and Ionization”. Water is one of the most familiar element existing around us and so that we often see its variable aspects in diverse situations. Furthermore, the images of water and the images of different state of water are significantly changed depends on my ages, and my living countries. I expressed my personal image of water, which has been made in two countries Japan and Switzerland in where I spend my both childhood and adulthood.
