nameless sands (2017) for ichigenkin

photo of the late Minegishi Issui 峯岸一水 on the cover of Hōgaku Journal, 2023, vol 433

the title “nameless sands” comes from the famous Shelley poem, Ozymandias. The ichigenkin, an instrument steeped in the aesthetics of Zen Buddhism, seemed a powerful and worthy equal to the weight of Shelley’s poem. My hope was that each individual sound in the work could capture the movement of each grain of sand as the wind blew past the “two trunkless legs of stone…[and] half sunk shattered visage.”

nameless sands is approximately 7 minutes in duration and is dedicated to Minegishi Issui.

I recorded the work in summer 2018 as a research student in Japan.

the score can be purchased here