Yasukazu Amemiya - Summer Prayer

Summer Prayer ("Natsu Nebutsu"), for solo percussionist, tape and percussion ensemble (1974) Yasukazu Amemiya, percussion Yasukazu Amemiya studied percussion and became a professional solo performer in Tokyo during the 1960s, before moving to New York in 1973. He composed Summer Prayer there in 1974, which was first performed by five US percussionists. Here, Amemiya performs all parts himself and, thanks to re-recording, he's heard on piano strings, tympani, bowed cymbals, marimba, bells and steel drums and so on. The composition describes a day in a Buddhist monk's life, the music's great dynamic mirroring the meditative stillness or great agitation of his impressionable state of mind. Art by Giuseppe Arcimboldo