DAI FUJIKURA SECRET FOREST Okeanos Art Respirant / Ken Takaseki, conductor Lucerne Festival Percussion Group / Michel Cerutti, conductor NMC D172 • Debut Discs is a new 4-year series in collaboration with BA (Hons) Graphic Design students at Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design. • The work of new designers showcased alongside the music of a younger generation of composers highlights the emerging talent and connections between the two arts forms. • The cover designs were exhibited at the series press launch event on 7 June. • The finals designs for the 12 releases in this series were selected by a judging panel including composer Colin Matthews, cover designer for 4AD Vaughan Oliver and Guardian/Radio 3 journalist Tom Service. • Debut Discs has the ambassadorial support of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. Although Dai Fujikura was born in Osaka, Japan, he has now spent more than 20 years in the UK where he studied composition with Edwin Roxburgh, Daryl Runswick and George Benjamin. During the last decade he has been the recipient of numerous prizes, including the Huddersfi eld Festival Young Composers Award and a Royal Philharmonic Society Award in this country, Internationaler Wiener Composition Prize, the Paul Hindemith Prize in Austria and Germany respectively, and both the OTAKA and Akutagawa awards in 2009. Dai's music is inspired by the 'beauty, form and movement of swarms of fish and birds', and by the vivid colours and textures of sounds. This is explored in Secret Forest and Okeanos which combines oboe, viola and clarinet with Japanese instruments. His works are frequently performed to an international audience and he has recently collaborated on a new album with experimental musician and ex-Japan singer, David Sylvian. TRACK LISTING 1 Secret Forest 17’31 Art Respirant / Takaseki 2 Rubi(co)n 1’08 Kate Romano, clarinet 3 Phantom Pulse 20’48 Lucerne Festival Percussion Group / Cerutti 4 Eternal Escape 3’50 Adrian Bradbury, cello 5 - 9 Okeanos 27’29 For sho, koto, oboe, clarinet and viola Okeanos NMC Recordings are distributed in Australia by Rockian Trading, P.O.Box 44, Briar Hill, Vic, 3088, Australia Telephone (03) 9432 4149 ~ Facsimile (03) 9444 6879