Acoustic sound artist and percussionist, Tatsuya Nakatani prefers to play traditional gongs a little differently: with his own hand-crafted bows. Driven by his own sound and story, Nakatani conducts the only gong orchestra in the world-without mallets. Creating an ethereal sound and environment The Nakatani Gong Orchestra is so captivating and engulfing that it sets your hair on end and your ears into spiraling confusion.
“I am always open to different implements that create sound,” Nakatani explains, “The gong and metal vibrations are particularly powerful; when I witnessed others bowing and using non traditional methods I embraced my own version.” His own version is enticing and exciting orchestra that remains subdued and entrancing all at once.
“The orchestra builds layer upon layer of sound until it is a culmination of resonating vibrations that pass through the audience and players, stopping time and pausing us suspending in that place of pure vibration,” Nakatani explains. Both enigmatic and beautiful, the Nakatani Gong Orchestra is comprised of various artists from each city Nakatani visits. Much like his nontraditional musicianship, Nakatani also creates his orchestra in an alternative fashion.
“They are selected by the people organizing the event, I like to use musicians and non-musicians, like dancers; visual artists and people who have heart, not necessarily a developed skill, and they make the best members of the orchestra,” he explains. His method of composing his orchestra where he trains artists in each new city on his craft, creates a very interesting experience unique to each city the NGO encounters.
Last week the NGO was brought to Baltimore by the High Zero Foundation. Nakatani’s solar system organized gongs lined the EMP Collective in front of a crowd full of eager participants, as nobody who hears or witnesses the NGO is simply a bystander. “I am always excited about coming to Baltimore and accessing its brilliant charm of artists, musicians and performers,” Nakatani remarks. “The city is rich in that way.”
Aside from directing the NGO, Nakatani also performs on his own. “My solo performances are full of information about the culmination of my life day to day, concentrated built up over years,” he says. “Hearing, seeing, doing, feeling life. It is all presented in those concentrated moments of my solo performance, they are different but similar every time.”
