Research Expertise and Interest
music composition, decolonizing music, noise, sound installations, music of Japan, extended vocal techniques, overtone singing, musical culture of Japan, experimental improvisation
Research Description
Breath is at the ontological center of my art practice as a vocalist, and taking a cue from Robert Hass’ thesis that “poetry is: a physical structure of the actual breath of a given emotion,” my practice transposes this notion into music through physical valence. I believe that physical gestures are, indeed, mapped to given emotions. When we hear the operatic tenor, Pavarotti, sing a high C and linger there for tens of seconds, he not only suspends his breath, but, we, too, as listeners, suspend our breath. Physiovalence directs our bodies to vivify, in real time, the suspension of our breath in parallel with the music to which we are listening.
In my music, through circular breathing, that Pavarottian lingering moment is expanded to minutes, not seconds. The phenomenological reading of that lingering exacerbates traditional modes of analysis in terms of structural hearing. For example, in Tard, I hold my breath in a bowl of water for 2 minutes, as an analog to how I have felt my breath has been suspended since November 2016, as well as how I feel my voice as a person of color has been muted.
My piece foregrounds my body as a specific instrument. Much of my music is “person-specific” wherein the intricacies of performance practice are brought into focus in the technical achievements of a specific individual fused, inextricably, with that performer’s aura. In an era in which we are increasingly rendered anonymous through digitization, Person-Specificity stands against the normative business practice of neocolonial transportability in Classical Music, and says, no, you cannot replace people who look like me.
If one does not consider the voice an instrument, then, the megaphone is my main instrument. I started using the megaphone, when I started performing in large spaces, with complex architectural features, which afforded the possibility of a counterpoint of resonances. Armed with a megaphone, I am mobile and can incorporate the narrative possibility of movement in a space, direct my sound in different directions, at different structural materials, and angles. I can play with various lengths of echoes. And articulating the resonant frequencies of different locations in a space, means that architecture, too, can be read as harmonic structure. I have developed an arsenal of vocal techniques specific to the megaphone. For example, a kind of slap tongue whose attack is followed by a multiphonic drone shaped by changing the vowel shapes within my mouth, but the shapes are vowels that don’t exist in any language. I have also learned to control the bandwidth of the multiphonic with the shape of my mouth, and I can also sing in counterpoint or in augmentation with the shaped feedback multiphonic by humming into my nasal cavity. There are other techniques which involve ingressive singing, which, in alternation with exhaled techniques, allows me to circular-breathe.
My art reaches extensively across disciplines. I have collaborated with artists and architects. For the artist, Angela Bulloch, I created several audio installations (driven by custom software), which provide audio input that affect the way her mechanical drawing machine sculptures draw. These works were exhibited at Art Basel as well as at Angela’s solo exhibition at the Wolfsburg Castle.
My sound installations algorithmically transform the trace of my voice in a manner that instrumentalizes the physicality of the architectural presence. For example, in Jericho Mouth, for the Inside-Out Music in Beijing, China, I installed PAs in a hollow chamber inside a wall structure algorithmically playing recordings of my sub-tone singing. The sounds are loud enough and low enough that it shakes the building. It was then palpable to the audience outside that the building IS an instrument.
In a recent work in Taiwan, Presence, a site-specific sound art installation performance, working with a team of students, we interviewed a group of “aunties” in NeiLi (sex workers, many of whom are of an advanced age). We asked them about their happiest moments, favorite music, and food, simple questions, in hopes of getting a more human picture of them. One of the aunties told us that her happiest moment in life was when she gave birth to her child, because it also came with pain. Another lady, told us that her favorite singer was Jiang Hui (江蕙), and that her favorite song was After Home (家後). We installed audio recordings of our experience from the weeklong workshop (Jiang Hui’s song, recordings of our colleagues’ working on their projects, street sounds, rain, and, a recording of an interview with an auntie) and spatialized them onto five floors of the Linggu Pagoda, a vertical crematorium. The sounds are presented in counterpoint with offerings of food and cigarettes - all having been mentioned to us in interviews with the aunties. “Presence,” as a title, also refers to our performance – being present in presenting the sounds and food offerings but not “performing” in the traditional sense. We enacted a middle ground between the living and the dead.
Articles and publications by Ken Ueno
Ueno, Ken. “Presence and Physiovalence: Artful Resistance against the Neoliberal Digitization of Our Lives,” in TDR, Volume 68, Issue: Still Exhausted: Labor, Digital Technologies, and the Performing Arts, March 2024, pp. 132-141. Published online by Cambridge University Press: March 1, 2024. Online Link
Ueno, Ken. “Embodied Practice in Ken Ueno’s “Person-Specific” Concertos.” Oxford Handbooks Online. March 22, 2022. https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190633547.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190633547-e-47?rskey=sI0O8X&result=1
Ueno, Ken. “ListN Up: Ken Ueno (August 13, 2021)” Icareifyoulisten.com, 13 August 2021.
Ueno, Ken. “Ice Skating and Stinky Foods: Notes from the Hong Kong Underground, 2018-2019,” in Charrieras, Damien, Mouillot, Francois, ed. Fractured Scenes, Underground Music-Making in Hong Kong and East Asia. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. Pp. 25-36.
Ueno, Ken. “What I Do to Beat the Blues, and How Do I Come Back from the Depths of Darkness…” hocTock.com, 2018.
Ueno, Ken. Reclaiming the Aura: B.B.King and the Limits of Music Notation, Faculty Articles, Townsend Center. (September 2013) http://townsendcenter.berkeley.edu/publications/reclaiming-aura-bb-king-and-limits-music-notation
Ueno, Ken. Spring Encounters: Ken Ueno, Reflections on the Rite, Will Robin, editor. (August 27, 2012) https://www.theriteofspringat100.org/spring-encounters-ken-ueno/
Ueno, Ken. Reclaiming the Aura: B.B.King in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction in Blues in Philosophy for Everyone: Thinking Deep About Feeling Low, published by John Wiley & Sons Inc., Jesse Steinberg and Abrol Fairweather, editors, ISBN: 0470656808. (December 2011)
Ueno, Ken. Finding the Score Within, How Jimi Hendrix and Bela Bartok saved my life, and why I became a throat-singing composer, NY Times, The Score Opionator, Peter Catapano, editor. (June 22, 2011) http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/22/finding-the-score-within/
Ueno, Ken. John Adams Interview in The John Adams Reader, published by Amadeus Press, LLC, Thomas May, editor, ISBN: 1574671324. (June 2006)
Ueno, Ken. Birtwistle’s Punch and Judy: Continuities and Change in the Four ‘Travel Music’ Sections, Thesis paper for MMA, Yale University
Ueno, Ken. “Historical Documents by Latin American Composers” in Border Crossings: Latin American Music in New Contexts, to be published by University of California Press
Ueno, Ken. “Interviews with living Latin American Composers” in Border Crossings: Latin American Music in New Contexts, to be published by University of California Press
Citations: Dissertations, Books, Articles and publications on Ken Ueno and his work
Parys, Bryan. “Explore the World of Throat Singing, Overtone Singing, and Other Multiphonic Vocal Techniques, Listen to a playlist curated by Ken Ueno ’94 that explores the diverse history of sonic possibilities of the human voice.” Berklee.com, 24 May 2022.
Barone, Joshua. “Two Musicians of Color are Creating Their Own Space: “Everything Rises,” by the violinist Jennifer Koh and the singer Davóne Tines, mines their experiences in the white-dominated classical music field.” The New York Times, 9 April, 2022.
McPherson, Dougal Henry James. “A Practice-Led Investigation into Transdisciplinary Free Improvisation in Sound and Movement.” Doctoral Dissertation, University of Huddersfield, 2022.
Piqué, Gabriel Lamar. “The Electric Saxophone: An Examination of and Guide to Electroacoustic Technology in Classical Saxophone Repertoire.” Doctoral Dissertation, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2021.
Wen Wei Po editors. “上野健 搭建會發聲的建築物 (Ken Ueno: Buildings that Make Sound).” Wen Wei Po, 27 November, 2021.
Morning Studio Editors. “Buzzing with Creativity: Two Artists Have Inspired One Another by Continually Pushing the Boundaries of Their Mediums. Now, with the Help of 120 Drones and Dozens of Musicians, They are Producing a Multisensory Show That Takes Their Work to Yet Another Level.” South China Morning Post, 24 November, 2021.
Maizels, Michael. In and Out of Phase: An Episodic History of Art and Music in the 1960s. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2020.
Tarvainen, Anne. “Music, Sound, and Voice in Somaesthetics: Overview of the Literature,” in Tarvanine, Anne, Järviö, Päivi, ed. Vol. 5 No. 2 (2019): Somaesthetics and Sound, Pp. 8-23.
Tatari, Marita. “The Voice of Emerging Space: On Ken Ueno’s Sound Installations.” 2019.
Kuhlman, Julia. “Prizes, Winning, and Identity: Narrative Vocal Music of the Pulitzer Prize, 2008-2018.” Master of Arts in Musicology Thesis, College of Creative Arts at West Virginia University, 2019.
Tamanio, Yraola. “Conditions of Enablement of Sound Practices in Hong Kong and Manila.” Doctoral Dissertation, Lingnan University, 2019.
Shockley, Alan. The Contemporary Piano – A Performer and Composer’s Guide to Techniques and Resources. New York: Rowman, 2018. Pp. 48, 53, 136.
Grella, George. “Ueno, Ken.” In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online.
Jay, Martin. “The Sound of Somaesthetics: Ken Ueno’s Jericho Mouth,” in The Journal of Somaesthetics, Vol. 4, Number 1, 2018.
Frey, Elinor. “On Commissioning New Music for Baroque Cello” in Circuit Musique Contemporaines, Vol. 28, numéro 2, 2018.
Rejak, Adam. “The Event of Blues Music and the Effects of Technology on the Artistic Event.” Doctoral Dissertation, The University of Western Ontario, 2018, Pp. 53, 151-156, 172, 189.
Rugger, David. “Seeing the Voice, Hearing the Body: Countertenors, Voice Type, and Identity.” Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 2018.
Valle, José Rafael. “Data Hallucination, Falsification and Validation using Generative Models and Formal Methods.” Doctoral Dissertation, UC Berkeley, 2018.
Pinochet, Sibela. “Critical Pedagogy Practice Specifics with Adolescents.” Ph.D. dissertation, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2017.
Pestova, Xenia. “Toy Pianos, Poor Tools: Vituosity and Imagination in a Limited Context,” in Tempo, Vol. 71, No. 281, 2017.
Yi, Zhou. The Social Imperative: Architecture and the City in China. Barcelona: Actar Publishers, 2017.
Bostanci, Hafize Büsra. “New Construction Methods and Hybrid Tectonics: Robotics in Architecture,” in 2017, 2nd International Conference on Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2017.
Brunet, Philippe Pierre. “A History and Performance Guide of a Concerto for Trumpet and Chamber Ensemble: Fanfares for the Apocalypse by Ken Ueno.” Doctoral Dissertation, University of Miami, 2016.
Mixter, Mary. “Deborah: The Creation of a Chamber Oratorio in One Act.” Master’s Thesis, University of North Texas, 2022.
Richman, Wendy. “Ether, Paper, Player: Composer-Performer Collaboration in 21st-Century String Writing.” Doctoral Research Project, Eastman School of Music, 2016.
Xin Gao. “Project China: A Resource of Contemporary Saxophone Music Written by Chinese-Born Composers.” Doctoral Dissertation, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2016.
Kennedy, Justin Leo. “Höömii-Tsol-Thinking Computer: Applying Selected Ancient Mongolian Vocal Practices to Contemporary Computer Music Composition.” Doctoral Dissertation, Arizona State University, 2016.
Mendoza, David Dean.”Axis Mundi, An Intercultural Composition for the Atlas Ensemble.” Doctoral Essay, University of Miami, 2015.
Bloom, Elisabeth. “Sounds & Music: Composer and Vocalist Brings Amalgam of Styles to Pittsburgh Residency.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 8 November 2015.
Molla, Doriana S.. “Ken Ueno – Visible Reminder of Invisible Light.” hocTok.com, 14 September 2015.
Miquiabas, Bong. “The Modern Academy in Focus: Composer Ken Ueno.” Interlude, 16 June 2015.
Cluett, Seth. “Composer Ken Ueno Interviewed by Seth Cluett.” The Engine Institute, 8 April 2015.
Weininger, David. “Ken Ueno’s ‘Gallo’ Mixes the Confounding, Comforting.” Boston Globe, 15 May 2014.
Potter, John. “Discovering Harposaurus and Other New Musical Creatures.” Brattleboro Reformer, 10 January 2013.
Freeman, Jason. ”Rediscovering the City with Urban Remix” in Leonardo, Vol. 45, No. 5, 2012
Katz, Shira Lee. The Influence of the Extra-Musical on the Composing Process. New York: Ashgate Publishing, 2012.
Bernabo, David. “Interview with LOTUS (League of Unsound Soujnd) Members David Smooke and Ken Ueno.” David Bernabo’s Blog, 5 January 2012.
Haley, Ken. Europe @ 2.4km/h. South Australia: Wakefield Press, 2011.
Graves, Jen. “Preview.” The Stranger, 16 October 2011.
Hanafusa, Chiaki. “The Influence of Japanese Composer on the Development of the Repertoire for the Saxophone and the Significance of the Fuzzy Bird Sonata by Takashi Yoshimatsu.” Doctoral Dissertation, University of North Texas, 2010. Pp. 63.
Ficarra, Evelyn. “Vague/Fenêtres.” Doctoral Dissertation, UC Berkeley, 2010.
Bergmann, Emilie. “Sor Juana’s “Silencio Sonora: “Musical Responses to Her Poetry,” in Cuadernos de Música, Artes Visuales y Artes Escéncas, vol. 4, núm. 1-2, ocubre-septiembre, 2008, Pp. 185, 188.
Bishop, Paula. “The Patronage of Composers in the United States.” Master of Music Thesis, Boston University, College of Fine Arts, 2005.
Parker, James. “Wired for Sound, Composer Ken Ueno get a charge out of connecting classical to electronica.” Boston Globe, 27 May 2005.
Powers, Keith. “Composer Mixes Sounds to Update Classical Genre.” Boston Herald, 15 May 2004.