In 2005, ji-nashi shakuhachi player Kiku Day approached me to write a piece for her, as part of her mission to increase the use of the shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute) in Western classical music. When she played to me, its warmth and huskiness seemed so spookily like a human voice that I decided an a cappella double choir setting of words would best complement it. We found a choir the Nonsuch Singers brave enough to enter into this project and Kiku found me the wild and wonderful poems of Ikkyu Soyun, a 15th Century Zen master whose timeless words cover the entire gamut of human emotion and are beautifully translated by John Stevenson. The poems are often very short, so each movement is a compilation of two or three of them.

1. Crazy Cloud was a name that Ikkyu gave himself when in 1428 he finished his Zen training and went his own wild way. The movement starts with a boisterous Noh Theatre-style acclamation of his nickname in Japanese and the music is Blown about madly by shakuhachi and voices alike.

For 2. Love Song, I have used a beautiful and poignant Japanese lullaby called Edo Komoriuta (meaning Lullaby from Edo, the old name for Tokyo) as a backdrop to two of Ikkyus highly romantic and sensual poems. The lullaby is sung in Japanese and the words depict the loss of a little boys beloved nursemaid who has gone back to her home. This chimes with how Ikkyu feels at the loss of his true love to another man.

3. Autumn Night brings together three of the many poems that Ikkyu wrote which mention this season. During my research into Japanese traditional music I was introduced to mnemonics a form of aural transmission of music through the natural pitch patterns of various vowel and consonant sounds. These words dont actually mean anything but if you try saying the percussion line, Tsu ta pon tsu-ta tsu po-po-pon etc., you will see how the sounds automatically come out as a rough pitch and rhythmic pattern. These are mnemonics taken from a Kabuki dance called Goro Tokimune. The process is reversed as in the middle verse when the shakuhachi provides the melody whilst the choir recites the words.

There are many people without whom this piece would not exist. I would like to thank Keith Howard for pointing Kiku into my direction, Kiku for bringing me into the wonderful and extraordinary world of the shakuhachi and to David Hughes for his patient teaching of the elements of Japanese traditional music. Thanks also go to Graham Caldbeck and the Nonsuch Singers who have worked incredibly hard to get this project off the ground. We owe a huge debt of gratitude also to both the Sasakawa and PRS Foundations for their financial support of the commission.

Roxanna Panufnik