Keiko Abe's Marimba Works And Performence

Prof.Keiko Abe plays a very important role in the mainstream marimba society,either her performance or composing.The world marimba trend is divided into three styles:the technique genre by Steven,the rhythm genre by Keiko and the contemporary piece by professional composers.Those works composed by Keiko Abe have great influence around the world and have been assigned as appointed pieces by many international marimba competitions,such as the World Marimba Competition,Tokyo Percussion Competition,Belgium International Marimba Competition,Fermo Marimba Competition(Italy).I'm trying to go through her pieces and build up a clear system for the players to help them on practicing and controlling Keiko's work.Currently,there's almost no serious research on Keiko's Marimba composing and performance.Shanghai Conservatory of Music invites Keiko Abe as the guest professor,and this, might be the only attempt in China.Although Keiko travels all around the world and give lessons,her pieces are still being read differently due to the difference of Asian culture and Western one.Thus,there's quite many misunderstanding of her pieces.Keiko's pieces and performance are quite popular and acceptable among Chinese musicians due to the connection between Chinese culture and Japanese culture.The shared Eastern culture context might be another reason.Being the only Mandarin students of Keiko and taking advantage of her perennial guest professor chair here in Shanghai,I would go deeply into the stories and ideas behind each piece.With this attempt,I will try to make the whole field clearer and more systemic.