Kenji_Haba

Kenji Haba is a guitarist who is exclusively sensitive to timbres in appreciating and expressing the beauty of guitar. Haba believes that the guitar is the perfect instrument to express his musical ideas because of its beautiful tones and its countless timbres. Recently, he has been focusing on impressionistic music, especially that of Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and Toru Takemitsu. In 2006 Haba began studying classical guitar under renowned guitarist, Kevin R. Gallagher and Oren Fader. With his passion driving his learning ability, after one year of studying, he was accepted into the Manhattan School of Music in Master of Music, and there worked with Mark Delpriora.

Concert Dates

  • October 9, 2011 - New York City
  • July 23, 2011 - Murfreesboro, Tennessee
  • June 26, 2011 - New York City

  • 15 one-minute selections for Kenji Haba

  • Number Station

    Jay Batzner

    Jay C. Batzner is a composer, sci-fi geek, home brewer, burgeoning seamster, and juggler on the faculty of Central Michigan University where he teaches music technology and electronic music courses. He has been many places and has done several things, some of which are rather impressive.

    "Number stations" are mysterious transmissions over short-wave radio frequencies. A typical transmission emerges from static, may include a recording of a folk tune, and then someone speaks a string of numbers. I've been listening to recordings of these a lot recently...

  • Spin

    Justin Breame

    Justin Breame is a composer and teacher from England, UK. Justin has scored for numerous documentaries and short films and has also released a CD of his own compositions entitled ‘Level Crossing'. Works range from choral and orchestral to solo works. His ‘Counting Time' was featured on the 60x60 2004 recording.

    For "Spin" I looked for a miniature version of what could be perceived as a life-cycle event. I found this in the short-lived journey of a spinning top. ‘Spin' accompanies the top from the moment it is set spinning on it's journey until it finally slows and submits to gravity.

  • Istihlal

    Salim Dada

    Musician and composer of the national orchestra of Algeria, Salim Dada has particularly on atypical musical course, from its personality and its lived. Thus its work grows rich progressively, in the crossing of meetings and experiments bringing the spirit and the expression of the Arab and Eastern music to the thought and the technique of Western writing.

    Autodidact guitarist and then player of several string instruments and the percussions (oud, kwitra, mondole, double bass, douf, riq, etc.), the guitarist's approach of Salim Dada illustrates a technical and esthetic's syncretism of an instrument which considers very rich and finely expressive. "Istihlal", thus is a first impression of an Arab improvisation where the musician does nothing but cherish the cords of his instrument.

  • Baiao

    Douglas DaSilva

    Douglas DaSilva is a composer, guitarist, educator and Artistic Director of the Composer's Voice Concert Series and Premiere Salon Concerts in New York City. He composes in various styles including jazz, pop, children's music, chamber music and experimental. Much of his writing is influenced by Brazilian music and self-inflicted stress.

    "Baiao" is a culture from Brazil's North East. Its spirit is expressed in the way-of-life, the dress, the food and most significantly, the music. The Baião rhythm has infected most of my compositions whether experimental of pop. Baião almost demands to be played on the guitar.

  • Essence

    Joseph Eidson

    Joseph Eidson holds degrees in composition from the University of Kansas (DMA, BM) and University of Texas (MM). He particularly enjoys writing vocal music and works for winds, and is a self-proclaimed expert at Guitar Hero. For more information on Dr. Eidson's music, please visit www.josepheidson.com.

    "Essence " was conceived with the feel of a vigorous, driving texture and conjured the image of frenetic dancing, perhaps just within the boundaries of control. Formal development was a tricky but fun challenge within the confines of one minute; two themes are stated and developed, sandwiched between an intro/outro motive and transitional material that leads into and out of the brief formal sections.

  • New York Minute

    Thomas Flippin

    Thomas Flippin is a classical guitarist and composer living in the New York City area. He is a graduate of the Yale School of Music and his work is published by Clear Note Publications. He is also a winner of the Olga and Paul Menn Foundation Composition Prize. www.thomasflippin.com

    Framed within the intensity of a "New York Minute," New York, New York depicts the chaos, claustrophobia, and ultimately relief that one feels upon arriving to and departing from Grand Central. More broadly, it conveys the unrelenting industrial drive and political force that could create and sustain such grandeur.

  • Sparks for guitar

    Dai Fujikura

    Dai Fujikura was born in Osaka and moved to the UK where he went on to study with Edwin Roxburgh, Daryl Runswick and George Benjamin. He has been the recipient of numerous prizes, including the Huddersfield Festival Young Composers Award, a Royal Philharmonic Society Award, Internationaler Wiener Composition Prize, the Paul Hindemith Prize, OTAKA and Akutagawa awards.

  • Shattered

    Iman Habibi

    Iman Habibi, MMUS (UBC 2010), is an award-winning composer and pianist, residing in Vancouver, BC. Hailed as a "giant in talent," his music has been programmed by organizations such as The Marilyn Horne Foundation (New York), The Canadian Opera Company (Toronto), Tapestry New Opera (Toronto). Read more at: http://www.imanhabibi.com/

    A perfect stream of dualities, now shattered in three, for the wise men feared to ponder long ago!

  • ICOSAbarDRON

    Stavros Hoplaros

    Stavros Hoplaros holds a Masters in Music Composition from California State University Long Beach, where he studied with a Fulbright Scholarship. He has composed in a wide variety of musical styles and ensembles and received performances by many distinguished artists.

    The pitch material of "ICOSAbarDRON" is mainly based on the Fibonacci numbers. The piece is consisted of 20 measures, as indicated in the title. The form of the piece satisfies the golden ratio. Therefore, the climax of the piece is found at roughly the phi point (at the middle of the twelfth bar). The piece is dedicated to Kenji Haba.

  • Sheng Sheng Man for solo guitar

    Chia-Yu Hsu

    Born in Banciao, Taiwan, Chia-Yu Hsu was the winner of the Sorel Organization's 2nd International Composition Competition, the 7th USA International Harp Composition Competition, ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer's Awards, among others. Her work has been performed by various ensembles including the London Sinfonietta, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, Eighth Blackbird, and Prism Quartet.

    "Sheng Sheng Man" was inspired by a poem of the same title by Li Quingzhao (1084-1155). In this poem, Li evokes her loneliness and sadness while enduring sickness. In my setting, the guitarist expresses the full palette of emotion that is depicted in the poem by both playing and singing.

  • Ashen Morning

    Ashley John Long

    Ashley John Long (b.1986) is a prize winning composer and virtuoso double bassist. His works have been released on the prestigious Signum Classics label, as well as the Fourier Transform, Autopoesis, Arse Deco, EMI, HQ and Anti Static record labels. His scores are published by Staunch Music and Alto Publications.

    "Ashen Morning" was written for Kenji Haba as part of Vox Novus' "15-Minutes-of-Fame" project. The works takes its title from a poem by Horst Bienk. The main compositional technique employed in the piece is the constant transformation of a set of pitches and rhythmic values.

  • Pulse

    Oswaldo Torres Ortiz

    Oswaldo Torres Ortiz was born 1980 in Venezuela. In 1999 he enters at the National University of Arts to get a degree on Music Licentiate. In 2005 he received the Prize in the composition competition "II National Salon of Young Composers". His works have been played in Venezuela, Croatia, Argentina, Japan, China, Mexico and Chile.

    "In Pulse," for guitar (2011), I worked the idea of pulse as an audible and periodic movement of the music, not only in the rhythmic appearance but also in: harmony, melody, and even in the timbre. This music is born from the silence, and violent and subtle gestures are confronted throughout the whole piece.

  • Susurration

    Richard Pressley

    Richard Pressley teaches at Ball State University and has enjoyed performances in the U.S. and Europe. He attended Butler University, Cambridge, and the University of Minnesota, with post-doctoral study in Germany. His instructors include Wolfgang Rihm, Sandeep Bhagwati, Dominick Argento, Judith Zaimont, Alex Lubet, Daniel Chua, Michael Schelle.

    "Susurration" (whispering, murmuring, rustling) is a short work consisting of a single melody that unfolds from within and around a sustained tone -- like a song emerging from within a fountain or from the leaves in a breeze -- which gradually ascends to a peak only to quickly cascade, evanesce, and disappear.

  • Creatura Theoricus

    John Thompson

    John Thompson directs the Music Technology Program at Georgia Southern University where he is Assistant Professor of Music. He seeks to highlight and follow new paths in music. John is an advocate for music that explores otherness, contemplation and alternate paths toward beauty.

    "Creatura Theoricus" is pensive yet restless. Contemplative creatures are often so, fluidly tangled in a mesh of thoughtful churning. A complex harmonic field brings forth impossible spatial geometries. Creatura Theorica wanders along möbius bands. arts into disparate areas.

  • Ediacaran Garden

    Chris Vaisvil

    Chris Vaisvil is a composer who works with various tunings and approaches. His works are realized through human and computer performance. Chris has earned an Associate degree in Music and a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry. His music is often a blend of science and art mediated by his Chicagoan Lithuanian - Polish heritage.

    "Ediacaran Garden" is a free form impressionistic study in harmonic guitar texture. The Ediacaran age was a time when multicellular creatures first developed. The most notable feature about this time in history is the absence of predators which suggests the inhabitants were living in a garden of Eden.