“It was a dream for me as a composer to travel to Japan and see my piece performed there.” The mdw student Noëmi Haffner was the first young female composer to be nominated by the mdw to participate in the Kyoto International Music Students Festival. For more than thirty years, this renowned festival has offered young up-and-coming artists from all over the world a stage and the opportunity for networking.

Noëmi composed the piece for a string trio consisting of students from the Kyoto University of the Arts: “I wanted to address the theme of dream worlds and reality and create dream-like sounds,” she recalls. After the submission of the piece, two months passed before she received word that the work had been accepted, and in May 2023, she departed for Japan. After her arrival in Kyoto, rehearsals began, which Noëmi found to be very rewarding. Despite the limited time available, the string trio fully engaged with Noëmi’s work, even though they were not yet familiar with some of the playing techniques the piece required. It was also necessary to overcome the language barrier: “I don’t speak Japanese, and their English vocabulary was limited,” says Noëmi. “I worked a great deal with gestures, conveying what I wanted through singing and dancing. They thought that was great and immediately tried to implement it in their playing.” In the rehearsals, the composer also learned to deal with situations when, for example, the musicians considered something in the piece to be unplayable, and needed to find other ways to make it work.

Noëmi continues to be in touch with the Japanese students from the string trio: “We became friends. The students from the US, France, Italy, and the other international universities were also inspiring people. I encountered many young, talented, and virtuoso musicians there.”

Noëmi was naturally anxious before the premiere performance, also because she had to give a short speech. But the concert was ultimately a great success:

It is tremendous to hear one’s own piece performed live. The festival was a real motivational kick for me.

Her musical work still left Noëmi enough time to explore Kyoto. Aimless walks gave her the chance to discover the city’s architecture, and there were ample opportunities to enjoy Japan’s culinary treats during her ten-day stay as well. She was impressed by the politeness and respect of the Japanese people in their social interactions. The Japanese students told her a great deal about their studies and daily life. Many aspects of Japanese culture seem stricter and more formal than Austrians are accustomed to. “In Japan, it is often more important to do something properly and correctly than to try something completely fresh and new,” says the student.

In terms of music, she noticed most of all the great love the Japanese have for classical European music, which was also the focus of the festival programme: “The audiences want to hear the classical ‘hits’ of European composers. There were no Japanese compositions on the programme.”

International experience is very important for composition students. “You compose alone, but you need a network,” Noëmi explains. “The creation of music has to do with people, emotions, and connectedness. Composers should be curious about a great many things and be familiar with different languages,” she says. She appreciates how travel broadens her horizons: “It is important to me to get to know different people and to see how they live, although the image I have personally is only a snippet of the culture.” She was able to further pursue her interest in other cultures in the 2023/24 winter semester through a semester abroad at Lisbon’s Escola Superior de Música. Noëmi will continue her studies at the mdw in the summer semester:

When you return from overseas, you see many things differently because you have new points of reference. They help you see where you are and where you want to go. I am very thankful for my experiences abroad.

Text: Isabella Gaisbauer