Perspectives on Kikuko Kanai and Okinawan Music in Modern Japan
Organized by the IMS Regional Association for East Asia (IMSEA).
This panel brings together Japanese music researchers in Japan and the UK to offer unprecedented perspectives on music in modern Japan through the focal point of Kikuko Kanai. The panel aims, broadly, to explore the theme of Okinawan identity in relation to the historical context of music in twentieth-century Japan, and particularly to give due consideration to issues of marginalization. Drawing on our collective expertise in musicology, music theory/analysis, and music education, we examine the significance of Kanai’s work integrating Okinawan folk elements into Western forms; the history of music education at Kanai’s alma mater through ethnic-minority students’ eyes; how Japanese music theory texts ‘peripheralized’ the Ryukyuan scale; the place of Okinawan culture in pre-1945 national educational policy; and the aesthetic/theoretical bases of compositional influences on Kanai’s style. The panel thus serves both to introduce the Okinawan composer and to expand on received accounts of Japanese and transcultural music ideologies.
Presentations in this Session
“Constructing Okinawa Musically”: Kikuko Kanai’s Overlooked Significance
Maiko Kawabata (Royal College of Music and the Open University, UK)
Kikuko Kanai (1906-1986) was among the first Japanese women to compose symphonies, yet her prolific oeuvre is not well known in Japan and almost completely unknown in the West. This lack of recognition does not reflect the magnitude of her achievement. I believe there are compelling reasons why Kanai’s work should be better known. She created a unique compositional style remarkable for its innovative synthesis of Okinawan folk music, European classical music, and American jazz. In doing so, she challenged existing conceptions of the composer’s role in modern Japan – against considerable professional barriers as a woman in an androcentric society and as an Okinawan in an ‘ethnically homogenous’ nation.
This presentation, from a monograph currently in progress, shows how and why Kanai combined indigenous music and Western techniques in her symphonic poem Ryūkyū where the Deigo flowers bloom (1946). My musical analysis reveals for the first time how Kanai treated folk melodies thematically, harmonically, contrapuntally and orchestrally to ‘construct Okinawa musically’. I read the piece as exemplifying Kanai’s belief that notating folk melodies on staves ‘elevated’ them and made them ‘universal’; as a dynamic site of historical memory in the aftermath of World War II, which devastated Okinawa; and as the meeting point of overlapping cultural ideologies. I read her achievement as countervailing the social and political marginalization (or ‘feminization’) of Okinawa by Japan and the U.S. To recognize fully the power of Kanai’s music thus carries implications for revisionist music historiography, canon diversification, and studies of music and identity.
The Reason Why Kikuko Kanai was Particular about Okinawan Music: from the Perspective of the Education and Cultural Situation in Modern Japan
Wakana Mishima (Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts)
This report focuses on the educational and cultural situation in modern Japan before WWII. The start of modernism in Okinawa prefecture was the abolition of the Ryukyu-Kingdom and the establishment of prefectures by Japanese government. This is why lots of studies about history of modern Okinawa tended to have a victim’s perspective.
The modernization of Japan was carried out in two steps. In case of educational policy, the former step (-1927) was standardization of all areas in Japan, including colonies as Taiwan and Korea. The latter step (1928-45) was to focus on regional characteristics all over Japan, in order to find folklore culture and to create the spirits of Japan as a national country. The ministry of education had been promoting a policy named ‘Kyoudo-Kyouiku (Local Education)’ since 1928, in order to re-evaluate the importance of local cultures. Okinawan culture was no exception, and lots of Okinawan traditional music (e.g. folk songs, work songs, lullabies, children’s songs etc.) were focused and introduced into education.
Kanai’s musical philosophy and much of her musical works based on Okinawan musicality might be influenced more or less by the pre-war educational and cultural situation in Japan. This is why we need to understand the context of how Okinawan culture and music was valued in the modern Japan society.
Western Music Theory and Composition Education in Japan: Diversity and Spread across Regions in the First Half of the Twentieth Century
Maho Nakatsuji (The Center of Creative Inheritance for the Future, Tokyo University of the Arts)
Modern music education in Japan began in the late 19th century. In 1879, the Music Investigation Committee, Japan’s first specialized music institution, was established within the Ministry of Education and it was reorganized into the Tokyo Academy of Music in 1887. Systematic composition education began in earnest at the academy in the 1930s. Kikuko Kanai, the focus of this panel, was one of the students who studied in the academy’s elective course during that decade.
The actual state of education in the elective course at the Tokyo Academy of Music has not yet been fully elucidated. However, it was in fact a gathering place for people from diverse backgrounds, including students from various parts of Japan—such as Kanai, who was from Okinawa—as well as international students from Thailand and Taiwan. Graduates were assigned to various regions, paving the way for the academy’s music education to spread to the provinces.
This presentation focuses on so-called “ethnic minority” students who attended the academy, examining the diversity of the academy’s educational environment and its influence, particularly through enrollment and activity records from the first half of the 20th century. Furthermore, by referencing primary sources such as Kanai’s research notes, it illustrates the actual state of composition and music theory education at that time.
This presentation aims to clarify the educational and historical background of composition and music theory in modern Japan, thereby laying the groundwork for research on individual composers.
Theory at the Periphery: Quartal Harmony and the Ryukyuan Scale in the Reception of Western Music Theory in Japan
Hiroko Nishida (Faculty of Design, Kyushu University)
While recent scholarship has increasingly embraced a global history of music theory, research specifically addressing the reception of Western music theory in Japan remains limited. Previous studies have examined the domestic assimilation of functional harmony—notably Hugo Riemann’s theories—alongside the translation of technical terminology and the evolution of notation, such as figured bass, Roman numerals, and functional symbols (Nishida 2023; Nishida & Nakatsuji 2025). However, these investigations have primarily focused on the core canon, often marginalizing modern harmonic developments, such as quartal harmony, and indigenous scale theories.
This presentation analyzes how modern theoretical constructs were integrated into Japanese harmony textbooks from the Taisho to the post-war Showa periods. Central to this inquiry is Waseigaku (Harmony; published 1935, revised and enlarged 1937) by Shimofusa Kan’ichi, a prominent theorist at the Tokyo Academy of Music and mentor to the composer Kanai Kikuko. By examining how Japanese publications centered on Western music theory treated quartal harmony and Japanese scales—specifically the Ryukyuan scale—this study elucidates the positioning of these “peripheral” concepts. Furthermore, I examine Kanai’s 1954 publication, Ryukyu no Minyo (Folk Songs of Ryukyu), to explore how she theorized the Ryukyuan scale in dialogue with Shimofusa’s pedagogical framework and how her work was evaluated by established academic authorities. Ultimately, this presentation discusses the theorization, peripherality, and legitimacy of quartal harmony and the Ryukyuan scale, offering a minority perspective on the localized transformation of Western music theory in Japan.
About the Presenters
Maiko Kawabata is an award-winning musicologist and professional violinist based at the Royal College of Music and the Open University, UK. The author of Paganini, the ‘Demonic’ Virtuoso, she has also co-edited and contributed to East Asian Voices of Resistance Against Racism in Music and Exploring Virtuosities: Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst, Nineteenth-Century Musical Practices and Beyond. Maiko has performed in orchestras and chamber ensembles throughout the UK, USA, and Germany. Her research into Kikuko Kanai has led to collaborations with the BBC and has been supported by the AHRC, Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, and the Music & Letters Trust.
Wakana Mishima is a Researcher at Affiliated Research Institute of Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts. She is specializing in musicology and the acceptance of Western music and its relation to traditional music in modern Japan, especially in Okinawa society. She earned her PhD from Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts (2011). Her major Japanese publications include The acceptance of Western music in modern Okinawa: the tradition, creation, identities (2014) and the co-edited Dynamism of Okinawan Performing Arts: the creation, symbol, crossing border. (2020). She also edited Images of Okinawa in Media: the creating cultures over 100 years (2025).
Maho Nakatsuji is a part-time lecturer and academic researcher at University History Archives, The Center of Creative Inheritance for the Future, Tokyo University of the Arts. She earned her PhD from Tokyo University of the Arts (2018). Her research focuses on Japanese composers and music education from the late 19th century to the early 20th century. Her publications include Modern Japan and Western Music Theory: Toward a Global History of Theory and “The Activities of Foreign Teachers at the Music Investigation Committee and the Tokyo Academy of Music: Toward a Re-examination of the History of Music Education in Modern Japan.”
Hiroko Nishida is a Professor at Kyushu University specializing in musicology and Western music theory. She earned her PhD from Tokyo University of the Arts (2009) and studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. Her research focuses on 19th- and 20th-century German music theory. Her major Japanese publications include Heinrich Schenker’s Musical Thought: Beyond Music Analysis (2018) and the co-edited Modern Japan and Western Music Theory: Towards a Global History of Theory (2025). She also co-authored Reception of Hugo Riemann’s Theory of Functional Harmony in Japan (2025).