Takayuki Rai

Takayuki Rai (b. 1954) is a prominent Japanese composer, interactive computer music performer, researcher and educator from Tokyo. For almost four decades, Takayuki Rai has been exploring the field of interactive live performance of a soloist/ensemble accompanied by digital signal processing system, starting from his early tape pieces for various instruments with fixed media, and towards Rai's contemporary work with a Macintosh computer running interactive Max/MSP patches. In his current setup, the computer system samples musician on stage to perform a complex real-time signal processing (including frequency/time domain manipulation via FFT/iFFT re-synthesis and composer's original Grain Based Frequency Modulation technique), and reproduces transformed sound along in the hall. Takayuki Rai also supervises the development and production of DIPS: Digital Image Processing with Sound multimedia art software for Max/MSP since 2000. Since 1991, Takayuki Rai is teaching computer music and composition at the Kunitachi College Of Music Sonology Department in Tokyo. From 2006 to 2013, Rai was also teaching at Lancaster University in the UK. He joined the faculty at Toho Gakuen School Of Music in 2014 and Sichuan Conservatory of Music in 2015. Some of Rai's more recent compositions include Misty Stillness (2016) for John Corbett (2) on clarinet and Simone Seiler on harp, as well as Time flows... for bass-flute, guitar, percussion and computer, which was premiered at the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC 2017) in Shanghai, China by Qi Xiaotong (flute), Min Zhenqi (guitar), and Deng Wenhui (percussion), a work originally from 2007 with computer part completely revised for the new performance in Shanghai. Rai studied composition with Yoshiro Irino in Japan and Helmut Lachenmann in Germany. In the eighties, he worked as a guest composer at Instituut Voor Sonologie in the Netherlands, where he studied computer music with Paul Berg. Takayuki Rai also composed guest pieces at various French studios and institutions, including Studios IRCAM, IMEB, INA-GRM, and Groupe de Musique Expérimentale de Bourges computer music studios. He realized many important early pieces during this European tenure, including Pain for two computers — a tape piece premiered in 1983 at the Concert Series of the Institute of Sonology, and Isolation for Harry Sparnaay on bass clarinet and tape (or three clarinetists), which was premiered at the 1980 International Gaudeamus Music Week (later won 2nd Irino Composition Award 1981 in Japan). Solidity: Transformation of my internal dialogue for 10 instruments was premiered by ASKO Ensemble at the Holland Festival 1983, and selected at ISCM World Music Days 1985 in Montreal and Warsaw New Music Forum '86. Takayuki Rai won several other prominent awards, including the 1st prize at NEWCOMP International Computer Music Competition and 1991 ICMA Commission Award. Takayuki Rai has been releasing music since the eighties, starting with an 8-min piece Transparency for harp and tape premiered by Masumi Nagasawa, which won a Mixed Electroacoustic Music Prize at the 13th International Electroacoustic Music Competition Bourges 1985 in France, and was included on Cultures Électroniques 1 CD/LP compilation, released by Le Chant du Monde. His Five Inventions accompanied by Computers for an ensemble with a live computer system were realized at Sonology and premiered at the 1986 International Computer Music Conference in the Netherlands. It was published on CD compilation, Computer Music Currents 8 released by WERGO (WER2028-2/282 028-2) in Germany, and honorary mentioned at the 15th International Electroacoustic Music Competition 1987 in Bourges. Rai appeared on the 3xCD IMEB Opus 30 Vol. 2 (1984-1999) compilation in 2003, celebrating the 30th anniversary of IMEB, with Sparkle for bass clarinet and tape, a piece commissioned initially by Fonds Voor De Scheppende Toonkunst and premiered by Harry Sparnaay in 1989. The tape part was realized at the computer music studio of G.M.E.B. in France and the Institute of Sonology in the Netherlands, using the composer's own program DMXMIC for real-time computer transformation of sound running at a DMX-1000 signal processing computer. Multiple compilation appearances were followed by two solo albums: Kinetic Figuration: Five Works With Computers CD released in 1998, showcasing works from 1983 to 1996, including Four Inventions and Kinetic Figuration for MIDI piano, Yamaha VP-1 synthesizer and IRCAM signal processing workstations with Yoshiko Shibuya on keyboards, and Transparency for harp and tape. A follow-up CD Interactive Computer Music was produced in 2013 by Japanese label Fontec, featuring five award-winning '97 to 2012 works for a live interactive multimedia computer system with various instruments. Takayuki Rai occasionally appeared on other artists’ releases; In 2001, he engineered Aki Takahashi’s piano live performance of …dal niente… by an American composer Richard Teitelbaum at Kunitachi College of Music recording studio in Tokyo. The recording was included on Teitelbaum's Piano Plus - Piano Music 1963-1998 CD compilation by New World Records in 2013. In this piece, Teitelbaum with Rai's assistance programmed a real-time iterative computer system that “listens” to the material played by the pianist on a specially adapted MIDI piano and responds instantaneously with transformations and additional utterances. Over the years, Takayuki Rai has collaborated with numerous critically acclaimed musicians in Japan and Europe, such as pianists Ken-ichi Nakagawa, Nelly Hivet, Kazue Nakamura, Yoshiko Shibuya and Yoko Abe, harpists Ailing Sai, Michiyo Umezu and Masumi Nagasawa, clarinetists Harry Sparnaay and Harmen de Boer, flutist Lars Graugaard, who also released their collaboration on CD Pieces For Flute And ISPW (Classico, CLASSCD342) in Denmark (2000), Taco Kooistra on cello (who participated in the Recursive Figuration for six cellos (1987) performance at the Cello Festival at Ysbrejer, Amsterdam in 1991), Keizo Mizoiri (contrabass), Shinichi Miyazaki (saxophone), Norio Sato (guitar), Mari Kimura (violin), and Yuichi Ise (percussion). On the Images Last photo, left to right: Takayuki Rai, Paul Rudy, Simon Emmerson (2), Barry Truax, and Wayne Siegel at Musica Viva, 2003, Coimbra, Portugal