The Tokyo Ensemble is a

chamber orchestra Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small numbe ...

composed of the best Japanese

bowed string instrument Bowed string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by a bow rubbing the strings. The bow rubbing the string causes vibration which the instrument emits as sound. Despite the numerous specialist studies devoted to t ...

s and if necessary completed with

wind instruments A wind instrument is a musical instrument that contains some type of resonator (usually a tube) in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing into (or over) a mouthpiece set at or near the end of the resonator. The pitc ...

. It is one of the few chamber orchestras in the world that can perform without a conductor because, due to intense rehearsals, the ensemble plays like a

string quartet The term string quartet can refer to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two violinists ...

. The Tokyo Ensemble is not a full-time institution but operates on a project basis similar to the famous

Chamber Orchestra of Europe The Chamber Orchestra of Europe (COE), established in 1981, is an orchestra based in London. The orchestra comprises about 60 members from across Europe. The players pursue parallel careers as international soloists, members of chamber groups and ...

. Once or twice a year, the members of the Ensemble meet for rehearsal sessions as well as concerts and tours. There are few chamber ensembles and orchestras in Japan. With the exception of the

Tokyo String Quartet The was an international string quartet that operated from 1969 to 2013. The group formed in 1969 at the Juilliard School of Music. The founding members attended the Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo, where they studied with Professor Hideo ...

founded in the United States, no Japanese chamber ensemble has obtained international recognition. Founded in 2001 by the violinist and conductor Jōji Hattori, the Tokyo Ensemble received an invitation from the Tokyo Opera City Foundation in its first year. Other national and international performances soon followed, including an invitation to Seoul in 2002, a tour in Portugal in June 2003 with the pianist

Maria João Pires Maria João Alexandre Barbosa Pires (; born 23 July 1944) is a Portuguese classical pianist, widely regarded as one of the leading interpreters of Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin. Early life and education Pires was born in Lisbon, Portugal, a posthu ...

, in China in 2005 and in August 2006, a tour in Canada at the invitation of the Vancouver Festival. On the occasion of the first concert dedicated to the Japanese composer

Ikuma Dan was a Japanese composer. Biography Dan was born in Tokyo, the descendant of a prominent family, his grandfather Baron Dan Takuma having been President of Mitsui before being assassinated in 1932. He graduated from Aoyama Gakuin and Tokyo M ...

, the Ensemble played his last work ''Two fragments in black and yellow for solo violin and string quartet''.

References

External links

Discography
(

Discogs Discogs (short for discographies) is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. While the site was originally created with a goal of becoming the la ...

) {{DEFAULTSORT:Tokyo Ensemble Chamber orchestras Music in Tokyo Musical groups established in 2001 2001 establishments in Japan