Bio
Takayuki Rai was born in Tokyo in 1954. He studied composition with Yoshiro Irino and Helmut Lachenmann, and computer music with Paul Berg at the Institute of Sonology in the Netherlands. He has been working at the Institute of Sonology, at IRCAM in Paris, and at the computer music studio of Groupe de Musique Experimentale de Bourges in France as a guest composer, and currently teaches at the Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo. Mr. Rai's works have been selected at numerous international competitions such as Gaudeamus, ISCM World Music Days, and the International Computer Music Conference. He has won first prize at the 13th and 17th International Electroacoustic Music Competition in France, the Irino Composition Prize in Japan, and first prize at the Newcomp International Computer Music Competition in the US.
Sparkel
Commissioned by 'Fonds voor de Scheppende Toonkunst' in Amsterdam, Sparkel was composed in 1989. The tape part was realized at the computer music studio of G.M.E.B. in France and the Institute of Sonology in the Netherlands, using the composer's own program "DMXMIC" for real-time computer transformation of sound running at a DMX-1000 signal processing computer. The bass clarinet part requires not only an incredible range (low C to E-flat more than four octaves higher), but a variety of pitch bends, multiphonics, and air current sounds (through the instrument) in order to imitate and dialog with the tape. There are obvious references in the music to the "wildness" of free jazz (Eric Dolphy, in particular).
