The talented composer Yasuko Yamaguchi began her residency at the Altmarkkreis Salzwedel Artists’ and Fellows’ House in early April. At a press conference, she offered an exclusive first glimpse into her exciting plans.
She first came into contact with the Hanseatic city of Salzwedel back in 2016 during her three-month stay at the Künstlerhof Schreyahn in Lower Saxony. Even then, she was captivated by the magic of nature and the enchanting half-timbered houses – so much so that she wanted to return and applied for the residency at the Artists’ and Scholars’ House. Now she is devoting herself to a new, exciting composition project right here.
During her stay in Salzwedel, Yamaguchi plans to compose a piece with the working title “Schattenlicht 3” for accordion and percussion. Inspired by the division between East and West Germany, as well as by the course of the Jeetze and Dumme rivers, which merge into one, she experiments with the musical representation of separation and rapprochement. In this piece, the accordion and percussion are initially set to face each other as independent entities. However, as the piece progresses, the two draw closer and eventually engage in an intense dialogue.
Yasuko Yamaguchi works in a traditional manner: she begins her compositions with handwritten jottings of ideas and brief notes, initially in written form. These eventually develop into melodies, which she carefully transcribes onto sheet music. “I compose very slowly, which is why I probably won’t be able to present a complete piece of music by the end of my scholarship,” she emphasised, however.
Yasuko Yamaguchi particularly values the peace and quiet that her stay affords her, allowing her to focus entirely on her compositional work – an opportunity that is otherwise rare due to her private commitments as a piano teacher.
To find inspiration, Yasuko Yamaguchi enjoys going for walks; she loves half-timbered houses, the sound of birdsong and the open countryside. The Altmark offers all of this in abundance and thus possesses great creative potential. “I was fascinated by the crooked half-timbered houses right from the start,” said Yasuko Yamaguchi, adding with a wink: “And I compose quirky, new music. It all fits together nicely.” She is now looking forward to getting to know her surroundings better and drawing inspiration from them.
You can find out what that sounds like at the Artists’ Café on 18 June 2026. So, do make a note of this event in your diary.
More about Yasuko Yamaguchi
Yasuko Yamaguchi was born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1969. She studied composition at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music under Akira Kitamura, Hideo Kobayashi and Michio Mamiya. She subsequently undertook postgraduate studies at the Robert Schumann University of Music in Düsseldorf under Manfred Trojahn, graduating with a diploma in 2000.
Yasuko Yamaguchi has received numerous awards, including the City of Düsseldorf’s Music Promotion Prize (2005) and various grants, amongst others from the Künstlerhof Schreyahn (2016), the Federal Minister of State for Culture at the German Study Centre in Venice (2018), the Musikfonds Berlin and the German Music Council. Most recently, she lived as a scholarship holder in Bellwald, Switzerland, in the summer of 2022, and has been invited to spend three months at the Fondazione Casa Atelier Bedigliora in Switzerland in the summer of 2027.
Her major commissions include works for Music From Japan (New York), the Kunststiftung NRW, the Tonhalle Düsseldorf and the Dr. Karl Emil and Lilli Brügmann Foundation. The orchestral work “Das Stehaufmännchen ist umgefallen” (1999) was nominated for the 10th Akutagawa Composition Prize and has been performed by leading Japanese orchestras such as the Kyoto Symphony Orchestra and the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra.
Yasuko Yamaguchi’s works have been performed worldwide by ensembles such as the E-MEX Ensemble, Studio Musikfabrik, 175 East (New Zealand), the Tokyo Sinfonietta and others. Numerous international festivals, including the ACL Festival in Taiwan, the International Gaudeamus Music Week in the Netherlands, the Munich Biennale and the Music From Japan Festival in New York, have been among her key performance venues.
Yasuko Yamaguchi lives and works as a freelance composer in Düsseldorf.
Further information and audio samples can be found on their website:
www.yasukoyamaguchi.com
(@AMK)
