Ep. 29: Interview with Erika Dohi

Welcome to Clexical, the podcast dedicated to contemporary classical music! I’m your host, Kweku Poku. Here you will listen to conversations with living contemporary composers about their work, their journey as musicians and their thoughts on the current new music scene. Join us as we explore and influence the vibrant world of contemporary classical music. To learn more about our work, please visit www.clexical.org. You can find the videos of all the interviews we’ve done so far, all the outreach programs we’ve done with schools and libraries, and our weekly blog posts discussing the current new music scene. Today’s podcast will be conducted by Jean Park . Erika Dohi is an Osaka-born pianist, composer, and improviser in Harlem, New York. She began her composition by pulling a variety of elements from different pieces of music she listens. Erika was originally a classical pianist. Since she moved to New York, she earned her undergraduate degree and master's from the Manhattan School of Music. Erika received her doctoral degree at Stony Brook. While in college, she attended numerous concerts in New York City. Erika watched dance, movies, various collaborations, and observed different types of music outside of classical music. Those elements have influenced her to look for what she wanted to create. Erika’s compositions come from improvisation. She would often play the piano without rules, just playing what she hears. Mostly, that leads to a song or a composition. Sometimes she begins to come up with ideas, and that becomes a composition. For example, one of her pieces is called “Polaroid”, her first album. Erika had an idea of using the piano as a guitar. She learned this technique from George Crumb, an American composer. The steps are simple. First, you hold the piano keys, and then strum inside the piano, ringing certain chords. She wanted to use the technique to resemble the sound of a guitar to make it into a pop song, becoming a musical piece basically. Even though it was less of an improvisation. For Replicant, one of those pieces from her first album, by playing the piano, she put the bolts in the piano. She was improvising those pitches that she prepared. Erika started the composition on the piano from what she had said earlier. It had developed from the song, which is the Polaroid. In her second album, she explored more into writing songs; it felt like a different process. She felt that it needed to have a form more than piano improvisation. She wanted to write a few songs. For the lyrics of Replicant, the lyrics had to be Japanese. Everything felt like a new process. She usually improvised her voice and heard the melody that became the main part of the melody. Erika started to dig into beats. She started going through pop songs and more electronic pieces. Erika is interested in beat songs and synthesizers. Also, she keeps exploring compositions on the piano because it is her instrument, and she gets inspiration from classical repertoires, composers she is able to perform from their work. All of these elements are inspirations, and writing pieces on a strict acoustic piano is challenging what she has been. She wants to dive in. Erika also plays in an international ensemble.