A certain fascination with Japan doubtless preoccupies the West.
Europe in the mid-19th century was swept away with the fad known as ‘Japonisme’ after the nation’s ruling class ended its Edo-era protectionist policies. Still today, with all of its technological advancements and futuristic fashions, Japan exudes a sort of ancient wisdom that mystifies, captivates, and resonates globally.
North Americans especially revere the restraint, order, and precision that stereotypically characterize Japanese culture — pristinely manicured gardens and aesthetically decorative raw fish dishes and Samurai swords as sharp as the devil himself.
Yet fascination is a two-way street.
“I had heard that Montreal was the Paris of North America,” says the flautist Yuki Isami when I inquire why she chose to relocate here over two decades ago. “It was my dream to speak and understand different languages, and I heard that in Montreal, they speak French and English. When I arrived, I didn’t speak any French. I learned in my second year. I was still struggling with English.”
Isami has long since mastered both of those — as well as Catalan and some Spanish — worked with Claire Marchand at the McGill Conservatory, received the Prix avec grand distinction at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, and furthermore, fortified this city’s reputation as an international music hub in the process.
As a member of the Montreal-based Japanese prog rock band TEKE::TEKE, whose 2023 album Hagata was longlisted for the 2024 Polaris Music Prize, she literally blows audiences away with her raucous technique. Now, following the release of her debut solo album, entitled Rives, Isami explores a more virtuosic post-classical approach to her craft, fusing traditional Japanese and contemporary musical influences into something truly exceptional.
“Classical music is where I started,” explains Isami. “For the contemporary music side, it’s like an extension of my classical training. My album is like all genres mixed together.”
Rives indeed is comprised of an eclectic selection from the French composers Claude Debussy and Eugène Bozza, as well as of Japanese counterparts like Makoto Shinohara, Toru Takemitsu, and the sound artist Reiko Yamada, who also studied music composition at McGill. The recording is as evocative and enchanting as its performer, who launched the album with an exultant recital on 17 May at Joseph-Rouleau Hall.
“I was so nervous,” she confesses of that show. “I really didn’t want to go on. I was crying five minutes before going to the stage, saying ‘I cannot do it, I cannot do it.’ But when I walked on the stage, some switch was turned on, and I really felt like it was one of the best performances of my life.”
Fortunately, audiences will have additional opportunities to experience Rives; she repeats the concert for the Jazz Festival 1 July at the Club Montréal TD stage, as well as opening for the acclaimed pianist Alexandra Stréliski the following two sold-out nights at Maison Symphonique.
Isami began studying piano at four years old in her hometown of Osaka. Her parents, who enjoyed listening to Japanese pop music, The Beatles, and singing Enka-style Karaoke, believed it would give Isami a necessary sense of discipline.
“It’s our culture when we have girls in the family to send the girls to piano at an early age for basic training,” Isami explains. “They sent me to ballet school, piano school, calligraphy school. They sent me to all kinds of private lessons.”
Isami is the eldest of two siblings. Her mother worked part-time in a bank, and later, as a social worker. When she was nine, her father, who was in the building trades, moved the family from Osaka to the Tokyo region. And it was there that Isami encountered her chosen instrument.
“On the first day of September, I entered a new school,” she recalls. “We all got together in the auditorium, we sang the school song, and the school band was accompanying the song. Then, that day, I saw the flute. It was like electricity in my head. I heard the sound and thought I would like to become a flautist. It was so clear. I went back to my house, and I was pulling my mother’s arm to go buy a flute. I collected information — where to buy, who I should contact to have a private lesson. I subscribed to the music club. I did it all myself.”
Isami became obsessed immediately, purchasing her first record — an album by the Irish flautist Sir James Galway. “I was very much into his playing,” says Isami. “I would listen and try to imitate his sound. It was so powerful and special. I remember when he came to Japan, I was 10, and I had just started playing flute. My teacher brought me to his concert. I was so impressed. I was in the very front of the hall, so amazed.”
A chance meeting in Tokyo with the flautist of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal made Isami consider moving here. “They used to come touring very often when I was in university,” she says. “I think it was the first time I spoke in English to Western people. It was a real experiment to have that conversation. I was so excited. I thought, ‘oh, I can speak.’ I could understand something. I had a special connection to Montreal. So, I wanted to live in Montreal. I realized that people want to learn the connection between Japanese and Western culture.”
Isami has spent more than 20 years elevating her music-making skills here, both onstage and off. “There is a moment, I think for me, when I make sound with my flute when I really have the ideal sound that I would like to make,” she tells me. “I’m reaching and reaching. It is so concentrated, that moment in the practice room, when I feel that connection.”
As a performer, Isami preserves a profoundly philosophical approach to her work, letting go and trusting, in “the God of art,” as she describes.
“I think it’s the vibration of the music or the sound that makes us happy. I believe that it influences other people. If I feel good and I’m having fun, I think it goes to other people, too. My work is really connected to good feelings, good vibes, and to share this. I don’t think about it too much. It’s more searching within myself and connecting and centring myself. I believe if I do good things, it will impact in a good way to people — and the world.”◼︎
Yuki Isami performs at Club Montréal TD for the Montreal International Jazz Festival, 1 July 2024.
Cover image: Serge Vaillancourt for Indie Montreal
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