[0:03] FEMALE VOICE
You are listening to the first episode of “Organ Archipelago”, a series of radio programmes composed by Arturas Bumšteinas that form part of his ongoing project “Organ Safari”. Bumšteinas spent one whole month traveling around his native Lithuania, visiting more than twenty churches, and with the help of organist Gailė Griciūtė and sound engineer Paul Paulun recorded their pipe organs in the conditions that they were found. From these recordings Bumšteinas created a 70 minute composition, that he shared with five different improvisers from around the world. They were asked to take the recordings to an outdoor location of their choice, to put on headphones and improvise along with what they heard.
This episode of Organ Archipelago features Shō master-musician Ko Ishikawa. The Shō is an ancient Japanese bamboo reed instrument, kind of like a small mouth-organ. Ishikawa recorded his improvisation on the balcony of his 11th floor apartment in Irumashi city. On the day he decided to record it was 37 degrees celcius, which affected how long he could play. Inside the Shō there is a mixture of bees’ wax and resin that attaches the metal reeds to the bamboo pipes. When the wax is warmed up to the correct temperature, the metal reeds vibrate easily, but if it’s too hot, the wax just melts away…
Ishikawa says, “I am very grateful for bees providing us with honey and wax. I feel an intimate relationship with nature by using an instrument made of natural materials, I would never want to kill an animal to make a musical instrument for myself. But it’s not necessary because now we have so many good substitute materials. I love the idea of honey bees looking at the Shō as we, humans, look at a cathedral organ. It’s a beautiful image to me”.
[02:14] MUSIC PLAYING
[11:42] FEMALE VOICE
You’ve been listening to “Organ Archipelago”, a part composed by Arturas Bumšteinas with contributions from five solo improvisers. In this episode, you heard Japanese master musician Ko Ishikawa, playing the Shō and improvising to organ music gathered in churches throughout Lithuania. In the next episode you’ll hear…
[12:12] MALE VOICE
Just a week after my arrival at the forrests of Lithuania, I first saw Orgān. I was out collecting fruit, not more than a quarter of a mile from the house, when I heard a droning sound in a tree near, and, looking up, saw a large object moving slowly along, hanging from the branches by its reed pipes. It passed on from tree to tree till it was lost in the woods, which was so swampy that I could not follow it. About a fortnight afterwards I heard that one was feeding in a tree in the swamp just below the house, and, taking my shot-gun microphone, I was fortunate enough to find it in the same place. As soon as I approached, it tried to conceal itself among the foliage; but I aimed at it with my microphone, which caused it to fall down almost dead. This was a male, about half-grown, being scarcely three feet high. On June 6th, I was out shooting with two local Lithuanians… [ARCHIVAL RECORDING OF MAN SAYING LITHUANIAN NAMES].
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