{"id":1247,"date":"2015-05-12T14:33:09","date_gmt":"2015-05-12T13:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/?p=1247"},"modified":"2015-05-13T14:37:18","modified_gmt":"2015-05-13T13:37:18","slug":"kent-premiere-for-acclaimed-edo-period-chamber-opera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/2015\/05\/12\/kent-premiere-for-acclaimed-edo-period-chamber-opera\/","title":{"rendered":"Kent premiere for acclaimed Edo-period chamber opera"},"content":{"rendered":"

The multi-media chamber opera with a libretto by Dr Nancy Gaffield (School of English) will be performed at the Gulbenkian on 23 May.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Titled Tokaido Road<\/em>, the fifty-minute opera is set in the rich, hedonistic \u2018Floating World\u2019 of Japan\u2019s Edo period. A composite of music, poetry, mime, dance and visual imagery,\u00a0Tokaido Road<\/em>\u00a0draws inspiration from the ravishing mix of art forms enjoyed by the wealthy members of Edo society.<\/p>\n

The opera was created and commissioned by the Okeanos Ensemble <\/i><\/a>, long renowned for its fascinating mix of Western and Japanese instruments (oboe, clarinet, viola, koto, sho, shakuhachi). The Ensemble will perform traditional Japanese music during the first half of the production and composer Nicola LeFanu\u2019s celebrated music during the second half.<\/p>\n

\"Tokaido<\/a><\/p>\n

The idea for Tokaido Road<\/em> grew from Dr Gaffield\u2019s award-winning book of poems <\/i><\/a> of the same name.\u00a0Published in 2011, Dr Gaffield\u2019s book was in turn inspired by Japanese artist Hiroshige\u2019s woodcut prints (1833\u201334) depicting the landscapes and travellers of the Tokaido Road, which linked the Japanese eastern and western capitals of Edo (Tokyo) and Kyoto.<\/p>\n

Tokaido Road <\/i><\/a><\/em>, published by CB Editions, was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, nominated for the Forward First Collection Prize, and was awarded the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize.<\/p>\n

The opera, which received its national premiere at the Cheltenham Music Festival\u00a0in July 2014, appears at the Gulbenkian as part of the University\u2019s 50th anniversary<\/a>, part of which is to celebrate the work of members of its creative community.<\/p>\n

Further information is available from Gulbenkian <\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dr Gaffield is\u00a0Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing <\/a>at the University\u2019s School of English<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The multi-media chamber opera with a libretto by Dr Nancy Gaffield (School of English) will be performed at the Gulbenkian on 23 May. Titled Tokaido … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38580,"featured_media":1250,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[118122],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1247"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38580"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1251,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1247\/revisions\/1251"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}