Although the announcement of 'sonic tapestry: Shoes, part V' by Tomoko Mukaiyama can be read as a variant of Sex and the City to classical music, would Sarah Jessica Parker forever looking at her Manolo Blahniks differently after seeing Mukaiyama's performance. This very special piano recital was Saturday 7 May at LP2 (room 2 of Rotterdam's new media centre Las Palmas) to be admired.
Tomoko Mukaiyama won the Gaudeamus Interpreter Competition in 1991 and has not left our country since. She specialises in the most fashionable forms of music and the musical climate for this in the Netherlands is - for now - extremely good.
In her sonic tapestry - you could describe it as soundscape - shoes take centre stage, alongside the music of Bach, Dowland, Chopin, Kyriakides, Ligeti, especially Ligeti, Nancarrow, Stockhausen and Rzewski. Solo pieces by all these composers are seamlessly welded together in Shoes' and support, or are supported by, images of shoes. And we are not talking about the ordinary ones. but the extravagant ones from Sex in the City with sky-high heels.
Right at the beginning of her short one-hour concert, the pianist emerged in a daring, brothel-red outfit with long black gloves. Under some naughty music, she stripped off these awkward things in a kind of pseudo-striptease, crawled behind the piano and burst into a fascinating concert. On stage were 16 monitors that gave a kaleidoscopic view of Mukaiyama's tiger-print boots. There was nothing naughty about this, here fascinating images coincided with the rhythm of the music. Here, by the way, it was easy to hear that Mukaiyama's percussive playing style that works so well in modern music does not work as well in the older music of Bach, Purcell or Chopin.
About halfway through, Mukaiyama changed colour: her vermillion red dress gave way to a black one, and with it a darker episode of her concert also began. The playful images of boots turned grim. A shoe made of chocolate melted, reassembled itself and finally melted after all. An extremely expensive pump burned down to the soles. And Mukaiyama played on imperturbably, even as a device behind her back started spitting out plastic shoes. In between, she popped an energetic solo from a toy piano. Was this a performance or a dressed-up recital? Somewhere in the middle I would say, in any case extraordinary and ingeniously put together and with a fat nod to New York fashion kings.
LP2 at Las Palmas, Rotterdam: Tomoko Mukaiyama-piano. 'Sonic tapestry V: Shoes' . Attended Saturday night 7 May
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