Isao Nakamura presents a selection of works for solo percussion which, despite some very demanding technical passages, do not focus primarily on technical brilliance but on clear, focused artistic ideas as well as, in some cases, extramusical concepts.

The main focus here is on drums. As the only instruments tuned to a specific pitch, in this CD the timpani features in two movements of Elliott Carter’s Eight Pieces for Four Timpani and in Peter Eötvös’s Thunder. The latter is an experimental solo work for one pedal timpani. Nicolaus A. Huber uses only a single snare drum in dasselbe ist nicht dasselbe (the same is not the same). A nearly endless range of sounds is elicited from the timpani by alternating playing techniques. Several works on this CD were dedicated to Isao Nakamura.

Born in Japan in 1958, Isao Nakamura made his debut as an eight-year-old playing the Japanese matsuri drum at a music festival. He has performed on concert tours throughout Europe and East Asia and appeared as a soloist with, among others, the symphony orchestras of German broadcasters BR, WDR, SR and SWR, the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1995 he founded Duo Konflikt (with the Korean pianist Kaya Han), and in 2006 the Nakamura Percussion Ensemble. He has been a professor at the University of Music Karlsruhe since 1992. He has also been a lecturer at the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music and the International Contemporary Music Festival in Japan. He is a visiting professor at the Kyoto City University of Arts.