World Music Center Distinguished Scholar Series

Lore of Gagaku: Textiles and Notation Books

Lecture by Robert Garfias

Former Professor at the University of Washington
and the University of California, Irvine;
Past President of the Society for Ethnomusicology (1985-1987)

The music of the Japanese Imperial Court, Gagaku is rich, complex and deserving of analytical exploration. There is much to the lore of Gagaku as well. The sites where the music and dances are performed today include many beautiful and historic temples, shrines, imperial tombs, as well as the Imperial Palace itself.

However, this presentation will focus on two important elements of the Gagaku tradition. The dance robes and the collections of written notation.

The robes used for Bugaku like those used by the Court Musicians themselves, owe their origin to the court robes of the Heian period (794-1185) in Japan, a long period of great peace and flourishing of the arts in Japan. The intensive borrowing of culture from China and Korea of the previous two hundred years was now stopped and no further contact with Mainland Asia occurred. Present day costumes of the court dances seem close or identical to those of Heian.

Although the music of Gagaku was traditionally performed from memory, and played by non-noble professional and hereditary musicians, the court nobles themselves began committed their music to writing, carefully making beautiful copy book as a memory aid, thanks to which some of the oldest examples of Gagaku notation exist today.

Robert Garfias studied at San Francisco State University, then completed his graduate work at UCLA in Ethnomusicology. He went on to teach at and direct the graduate program in Ethnomusicology at the University of Washington. Garfias served as Dean at UC Irvine for six years, as well as professor of Anthropology. He was a presidential appointee to the National Council on the Arts and a member of the Council of the Smithsonian Institution. In May 2005, in recognition of his life’s work, he was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun by the Emperor of Japan—one of the highest honors bestowed on a non-Japanese citizen.