Haiku Music Challenge 43

Welcome to the forty-third iteration of the Haiku Music Challenge, hosted by Naviar Records.

On Wednesday 8th January 2014 I posted a haiku by Andrea Cecon on my Tumblr page, accompanied by a picture, and invited musicians to make music in response to it. That was the beginning of the Naviar community.

To celebrate Naviar’s sixth anniversary, I chose a poem by one of my favourite haiku writers.

Taneda Santoka was a Japanese poet and mendicant Zen priest who specialised in free-verse haiku. Santoka was a disciple of Ogiwara Seisensui (1884 – 1976), the founder of the free-style haiku which discarded the traditional use of the 5-7-5 structure.

Buoyantly we go

Like the wind,

Tasting water.

Twenty-one tracks were inspired by Santoka’s poem. Here are three of them:

Track: Hyo Hyo
Artist: MusicheVirtuali
Genre: electronic

In Hyo Hyo, Marco Lucchi aka MusicheVirtuali blends hypnotic ambient layers and haunting, more classical sounds.

Track: Like the Wind
Artist: FlownBlue
Genre: instrumental, improvisation

FlownBlue’s first submission to the Haiku Music Challenge is an improvisation on solo fretless bass guitar. The result is an ethereal and yet uniform composition.

Track: Buoyantly We Go
Artist: GLSmyth
Genre: classical

Buoyantly We Go’s hopeful, positive atmosphere is a perfect match with Santoka’s haiku. This piece by GLSmyth was written for flute, clarinet, horn, trombone, violin, viola, cello and string bass.

Thank you for listening. Next week we’ll be listening to music inspired by a haiku by Mark Morris:

ambushed by bush fire,

had we only been dragons —
a lizard’s last words.

The deadline to submit your track is 22 January. To find out more and participate, please visit the Naviar Records site.