World music or Japanese - the gagaku of Tôgi Hideki

Abstract

The term ‘world music’ usually conjures up images of musics from ‘remote’ corners of the world. However, that remoteness is not always geographical and can, for example, be chronological. Tôgi Hideki, a former musician from the Imperial court in Japan, has sought to introduce court music - gagaku - to a wider audience through the reworking of traditional gagaku pieces and new compositions for gagaku instruments. Gagaku boasts a history of over 1,200 years and its esoteric nature inhibits popular interest. Tôgi Hideki’s popularised gagaku, on the other hand, has found a new audience for gagaku, and his music serves as a bridge introducing Japanese back to a remote part of Japanese musical culture.