Yabo

3 min

Commissioned by Cathy Irons & Dr Joanna Drimatis for the Women in Creative Arts Conference, Australian National University

violin, viola

Yabo reflects Salina’s interest in gagaku, the ancient court music of Japan that dates back 1300 years. One of the three wind instruments of the gagaku ensemble is the shō, a bamboo mouth organ. The word ‘Yabo’ refers to the shō’s two silent pipes (’ya’ and ‘mō’) that have been kept as part of the instrument for aesthetic purposes, and has continued to be used in the modern Japanese language to mean ‘useless’, ‘unnecessary’ and even ‘unsophisticated’. This piece is a playful exploration of the eleven standard chords of the shō.

–Salina Fisher