B u i l d i n g  t h e  P e r f e c t
MARIMBA

In a career spanning more than 40 years, Japanese marimbist Keiko Abe has delighted international audiences with her unique technique, and highly individual musical flair.

Abe's infrequent visits to the US provide few opportunities to experience her special brand of performance first hand, and it's a rare treat that she will appear at the upcoming Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC) 2001, November 1417 in Nashville, Tennessee. Her performance in the Thursday evening concert is an extraordinary chance to hear a supremely gifted musician draw unusual sounds from an unusual instrument.

Given her frenetic schedule, catching up with Keiko Abe is by no means easy. Aside from her career as a concert performer, Abe has appeared frequently on Japanese television and radio, as well as being a prolific recording artist (thirteen albums in five years!). She is also a respected clinician and teacher, and these days, a composer. Her atmospheric--and fiendishly difficult-- pieces are valuable additions to the marimba's repertoire, blending Western and Eastern musical ideas while pushing the boundaries of accepted marimba technique.

Of course, pushing boundaries is nothing new to Abe. She was the first marimba artist to employ the method

of using six mallets, a technique she developed herself. "When I started experimenting with six mallets," Abe explains, "I quickly found that it's actually absolutely necessary--it ensures the richest and fullest sound on the marimba. Now I teach this technique to all my students."

New techniques mean new and better instruments are needed to use them. Keiko Abe has maintained a close working relationship with Yamaha's designers since the early 1960's, when both parties shared their mutual goal of improving the marimba to the point where it could be considered seriously on the same level with other more traditional concert instruments. Abe and Yamaha have since been partners in a quest for the perfect marimba.

The design of a five-octave marimba was completed in 1984, a culmination of more than two decades of research to meet the demands of a highly capable performer. The YM-6000 is now Keiko Abe's instrument of choice, and since its introduction to the concert platform, Yamaha's has become a prevailing designer of concert marimbas.

"I believe that any marimbist who wants to a have serious concert activity must use a five-octave marimba," she says.

Keiko Abe's present performances showcase her role as both composer and performer. In 1968 she performed her first recital wherein every work was commissioned by her, winning an award from the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs. Similarly, all nine selections on the PASIC recital are Abe's original compositions--six of them US premieres. Her music is inspired by the sounds of nature, in particular that of her homeland. The sounds she draws from her instrument are evocative of flowing water, or the wind whispering through a secluded bamboo grove.

Given her huge number of annual concerts, it's surprising she can find the time to be such a prolific composer. But typically for Abe, she never feels the need to divide her time between the two: "It's not so difficult. I've just shifted naturally into sharing time for each activity."

Approaching things naturally is an attitude that obviously works supremely well for Keiko Abe.

Program for the PASIC 2001 Thursday night featured performance to be held in Nashville, November 15:

· Conversation in the Forest 3 for Two Marimbas
and Three Percussionists
· Itsuki Fantasy for six mallets (marimba solo)
Voice of Matsuri Drums (marimba solo)
· Marimba d'Amore (marimba solo) Wind Sketch 3
for Solo Marimba and Two Percussionists
· Memories of the Seashore (marimba ensemble)
· Tambourin Paraphrase for Two Marimbas
· Ancient Letter (marimba solo)
· Marimba Conce