Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Ai Kamachi and friends at Hillbrook School communicate through the international language of music.

Montalvo artist-in-residence brings her music to Hillbrook

By Shari Kaplan

Award-winning composer Ai Kamachi, one of the artists-in-residence at Villa Montalvo in Saratoga, shared some of her compositions and playing techniques at Hillbrook School April 29 as part of the school's age- and ability-tailored music program.

A native of Tokyo, Japan, Kamachi is studying the relationship between image and music while at Montalvo. Her compositions have been commissioned and premiered in Japan and Korea. She plays and writes music for many instruments, including percussion instruments such as timpani, marimba and piano.

"I grew up in an environment filled with music," she told the students, recalling her mother teaching her piano at age 5. Kamachi took to music right away because, as she explained, "when I was young, I was shy and found it difficult to communicate through words."

Although she spoke hesitantly in English, she communicated fluently in the international language of music in the videotape she showed of herself performing two original compositions. In one, she played a large marimba, each hand holding two hammers that danced over the instrument. In the other piece, she knelt on the ground, using smaller hammers to play a xylophone-sized instrument, which consisted of a different-pitched metal pipes she collected on visits to scrap-metal dealers.

Kamachi shared her experiences with an eager audience of fourth- through sixth-graders, who have been studying musical composition, as well as singing and playing, since they entered the school.

"When I was your age, I had already composed several pieces of music. What you choose [to play] doesn't matter. What's important is that you continue," she advised the students.

By the time Hillbrook students reach fifth grade, music teacher Rosella Bathurst has taught them how to read notes, write simple tunes and compose ostinatos (repeated patterns) in both melody and harmony. And, of course, they sing.

By sixth grade, students divide into groups and create "stories" told solely in music. Following brainstorming sessions to decide upon a protagonist, antagonist and other characters, students compose themes similar to leitmotifs to represent each character, reveal dialogue and set the mood.

"Composition in music has a direct correlation with composition in writing. All the things that go into a good piece of music go into a good story," Bathurst explained later.

At the end of her presentation, Kamachi answered students' many questions, including a request that she play something on the music room's piano.

"I can't speak English so well, so music is good," she replied with a smile. She obliged by playing a lilting sonatina she wrote as a teenager.