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Kaidan Suite
composed by Billy Fox

designed by
Tomi Tsunoda & Andrew Scoville
performed by
Kitsune Ensemble

Friday, June 5 @ 7pm

$15

Based on the ancient Japanese ritual called “The Gathering of 100 Ghostly Tales,” the Kaidan Suite is a 13-part orchestral composition that recreates the mood of this Edo-era performance, in which ghost stories were told by candlelight. While drawing from traditional Japanese tonal systems and narrative conventions, the Kaidan Suite primarily uses the languages of jazz, contemporary classical, and free improvisation to capture the emotional pacing of the ritual. For Spring Fever Festival, the suite will be performed as both a concert (by improvising chamber group The Kitsune Ensemble) and a design installation, using a combination of organic materials and video projection to create a 3-dimensional, visceral environment that evolves and shifts along with the music.  Together, the music and design recreate the mood of this medieval Japanese séance, performed both by Samurai to test each others’ courage and by peasants to create chills through their bodies on long, hot summer nights.
about the creator

BILLY FOX
Kaidan Suite

www.kitsuneensemble.org

Billy is the composer/director of the Kitsune Ensemble, an improvising chamber group comprised of Japanese and American musicians dedicated to the performance of works inspired by facets of Japanese culture and history. The Kaidan Suite was released on Gozen Reiji Records, and was most recently performed at Washington, DC’s Kennedy Center.  Prior to forming this ensemble, Billy was commissioned by bandleader Daisuke Kurata to compose for two concert series performed in Nagoya, Japan.

The Uncle Wiggly Suite, Billy’s debut recording as a composer/director, was released on Portugal’s Clean Feed Records and features Mark Dresser (“the most important bassist to emerge since 1980 in jazz or classical music”—Harvey Pekar, Boston Herald). Selections from the suite are featured in the film Rhyme Animal, directed by Phil Roc (producer of the Sony Music documentary Made in Heaven—The Making of Kind of Blue).

Billy has been awarded the American Composers Forum McKnight Visiting Composers Fellowship, and grants from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the Puffin Foundation.