Syzygys is a Japanese organ-violin duo composed of Hitomi Shimizu on

organ Organ may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a part of an organism Musical instruments * Organ (music), a family of keyboard musical instruments characterized by sustained tone ** Electronic organ, an electronic keyboard instrument ** Hammond ...

and Hiromi Nishida on

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

. Formed in 1985, they play "

microtonal Microtonal music or microtonality is the use in music of microtones—intervals smaller than a semitone, also called "microintervals". It may also be extended to include any music using intervals not found in the customary Western tuning of tw ...

pop music", specifically

just intonation In music, just intonation or pure intonation is the tuning of musical intervals Interval may refer to: Mathematics and physics * Interval (mathematics), a range of numbers ** Partially ordered set#Intervals, its generalization from numbers to ...

in the form of

Harry Partch Harry Partch (June 24, 1901 – September 3, 1974) was an American composer, music theorist, and creator of unique musical instruments. He composed using scales of unequal intervals in just intonation, and was one of the first 20th-century com ...

's 43-tone scale.Louise Duchesneau, Wolfgang Marx (2011). ''György Ligeti: Of Foreign Lands and Strange Sounds'', p.136. Boydell & Brewer. . "The music of Syzygys...which is based on Partch's 43-tone scale, remains an individual case. Nishida studied Arabic style violin with Abdo Dagir. They have released albums on

Tzadik Records Tzadik Records is a record label in New York City that specializes in avant-garde and experimental music. The label was established by composer and saxophonist John Zorn in 1995. He is the executive producer of all Tzadik releases. Tzadik is a n ...

, including ''Syzygys: Complete Studio Recordings'' (2003, Tzadik #7240).Microtonal Discography
, ''Huygens-Fokker.org''. Accessed: December 09 2016.

György Ligeti György Sándor Ligeti (; ; 28 May 1923 – 12 June 2006) was a Hungarian-Austrian composer of contemporary classical music. He has been described as "one of the most important avant-garde composers in the latter half of the twentieth century" ...

was interested in their music, and he mentions their track "Fauna Grotesque" in a sketch.

References

External links

Website
Microtonal musicians Tzadik Records artists Japanese musical duos {{Japan-band-stub