top of page
Between Koenji and Brooklyn:
Tokyo, New York and the Circulations of Musics in a Global World
My senior honors thesis focused on global circulations of Japanese musics in the 20th and 21st centuries. Featuring 4 case studies and many more oral histories, I analyzed the connection between music and identity in Japanese jazz, experimental music and traditional music.
Tracing a Giant Step: John Coltrane in Japan
This article, published in Point of Departure, commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of John Coltrane's historic tour to Japan. Through archival research in Japan and the United States, parsing through published and unpublished materials and through oral histories, I create a rich picture of tour.
箏と２１世紀：八木美知依のグローバルな箏音楽
Echoes of Tradition: Yagi Michiyo’s Koto Music in a Globalized 21st Century
I presented a paper at the Japanese Society for Sonic Arts' (JSSA) 27th Research Conference. Though the presentation was conducted in Japanese, the paper is written in both English and Japanese.
My paper focused on how the physicality of the koto is suited for 21st century musical collaboration.
“Ornette at Prince Street”: A Glimpse from the Archives
The genesis of this article was a wild goose chase that involved hunting for an article about the musician Ornette Coleman and his loft that had inspired the sax player Umezu Kazutoki to go to New York in the early 70's. I searched through stacks of Swing Journals at the National Diet Library in air conditioned freezing hot Tokyo July. After translating the original article, I tracked down the author and interviewed him about his relationship with Ornette Coleman.
The final article was co-written with Columbia Professor Brent Hayes Edwards.
bottom of page