There is a series of drawings “Ten Ox Herding Pictures” made by Tenshō Shūbun -- a Japanese painter of XV-th century, a zen monk.
Tenshō Shūbun was a zen monk, and his idea was to illustrate a Zen practice of subjugation of mind. Our mind is a bull, and a Shepherd is we ourselves.
My musical idea appeared at the very moment I saw the drawings.
The whole piece consists of 6 parts:
Part I
In Search of the Bull
Part II
Discovery of the Footprints
Part III
Catching and taming the Bull
Part IV
The Bull Transcended
Part V
Both Bull and Self Transcended
Part VI
Reaching the Source
I`m not an expert in Zen practice, but I was so fascinated, that it took me only 5 weeks to embody my idea in music. In a month my “Six miniatures about the shepherd & the bull” was introduced to the public in the Moscow club DOM.
Listen this:
Tenshō Shūbun (died c. 1444–50), a Japanese Zen Buddhist monk and painter.
Olga Ivusheikova - flute
Julia Igonina - violin
Rustam Komachkov - cello
Natalia Ardasheva - piano
Culturel centre DOM Dec. 8. 2012 Moscow
Video by Sergey Karsaev
