Joseph Pereira wrote the piece specifically for his LA Phil colleague Matthew Howard. “When we talked about this concerto, the first thing Matt said was that he wanted a Japanese element in the piece. Matt is half Japanese, so that immediately got me thinking about identity as the central idea of this new work,” Pereira says. “It’s the perfect concept for a concerto because there’s a soloist going back and forth with a larger group of people and finding out how they complement and shape each other.” As Howard is of Japanese heritage, the theme of identity naturally emerged as a guiding concept. The concerto reflects this through the interplay between soloist and orchestra—mirroring the balance and tension between individual and collective voices. The Japanese connection brought Pereira to gagaku, the repertory of elegant court music from medieval Japan. The “becomingness” of naru is manifest in the ways time and pitch are fluid in gagaku. For Pereira, time in gagaku is almost absent and pitch is more a matter of color or timbre rather than matching precise vibration frequencies., premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall. The performance featured Principal Percussionist Matt Howard and was conducted by Gustavo Gimeno.

Source : https://www.laphil.com/musicdb/pieces/7070/naru

Among the instruments featured was the Hyperstellar Sailophone, placed at the center of the stage, resting on a large bass drum. It contributed to the sound world of the piece in both a visual and acoustic sense. Matt Howard described his experience working with the instrument:

“I’m going to have to sit there and explore the instrument, and people are going to watch me explore this instrument, because it’s going to be resting on top of a bass drum. I’m going to be finding certain spots that resonate best on the bass drum, lifting it, bowing it on certain pegs, and creating something in the moment. I really had to do most of my work on that instrument. Just to really make sure that I knew exactly how to control all of the things I wanted.”

I have built the Sailophone prototype in 2007. Then Hideaki Shirato, a Japanese artist, convinced me to build the first large Sailophone and it went out great. Once again, there is a clear Japanese influence surrounding this unique instrument.

Interestingly, the curved form of the Sailophone also echoes the unique architecture of Walt Disney Concert Hall, where the premiere was held.

Joseph Pereira envisioned the orchestra becoming, in a way, an extension of the Sailophone itself. The instrument’s resonance and harmonic structure influenced both composition and performance.