Skip to content

ARNOLFINI MUSIC/Yamash ‘ta
Arnolfini Music’s first full season will go out with a bang. The fantastic Japanese percussionist Yamash ‘ta will give a recital on well-matured Bristol percussion instruments which he will choose the day before the concert on a tour of the city’s scrap-yards.
This concert will be given at 20 00 hrs on tuesday 16 march and will combine with the preview of the selection of prize-winning and other works from the Second International British Print Biennale.
When he was only 14, Yamash ‘ta was tympanist for two Japanese symphony orchestras and percussionist for four film studios. He burst upon Europe last year in Henze’s El Cimarron (Diary of a Runaway Slave) and appeared at the festivals of Aldeburgh, Edinburgh, Berlin, Avignon and Spoleto. A number of composers, including Takemitsu, Henze and Maxwell Davies have written pieces specially for him. Percussion concertos have been written for him which he has played with the Chicago Symphony and Berlin Philharmonic Orchestras.
Yamash ‘ta plays an enormous number of instruments, both Eastern and Western, and they cover a good deal of space. As a result he has developed an amazingly athletic technique which enables him to leap from one end of his array of ironmongery to the other, landing on the split second to deal a blow at a gong before sprinting off to devastate a pair of xylophones. Next month he is touring Europe in Bartok’s Sonata for two pianos and percussion, playing both the percussion parts. He is 23.