Basic Information

Participant: A master’s student in Musicology and Music Studies
Location: Artscape, Toronto, Canada
Period: November 1 – 21, 2014

Achievements

What impressed me most during the stay in the residence with other artists was that they were habitually talking about their own and other artist’s artworks, and also the problems they were facing in artwork, without feeling stress, as if they were talking about the weather. Comparing to Japan, where symposiums and discussions are held when it comes to talking about “our own work”, I was very impressed and happy to directly experience a different attitude of my co-lodgers towards art.

This difference was also felt in downtown of Toronto, where I had a chance to tell a stranger that I came to study in the Artist-in-Residence. The person, whom I asked the way in the first place, showed a strong interest in my artwork. Another good example is that I was invited by a doctoral student of opera at the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory, whom I made friends with in the residence, to a dress rehearsal and a concert held in a church.

In the residence, I heard the opinion that my work was regarded as quite unique considering the history of the musical instrument. Before, I had viewed it from the technical aspect focusing on its controllability as a new string instrument. Now, I have obtained a new point of view, that is, the aesthetics aspect of the instrument, and concurrently started questioning myself “why so I dare want to build an analog, acoustic instrument in the digital era of the 21st century?” I will contemplate my work from the perspectives of history and aesthetics in addition to the technical aspect of the instrument.