Miki Narusawa

NARUSAWA Miki

Contrabass

He began playing the double bass at the age of 15. After graduating from Tokyo Gakugei University, Tokyo University of the Arts, and their graduate schools, he studied double bass at the Frankfurt University of Music and the Mannheim University of Music. He studied under Kyozo Mohri, Ken Kurokawa, Yoshio Nagashima, Günter Krauss, and Christoph Schmidt. In 1996, he became a contract musician at the Mannheim State Opera. Since September 1997, he has been a double bass player with the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra.

What made you start playing an instrument?	In my high school string club, the double bass player quit during the summer vacation, so I decided to take over.
What is important in a performance	Approaching the work with a fresh feeling every time
One of my favorite songs	Ravel: Ballet music "Ma Mère l'Oye" This song, based on a nursery rhyme, is filled with a gentle tone reminiscent of a story being read aloud. The orchestration, in which the entire orchestra adds variously changing colors to melodies centered on woodwind instruments such as flute and clarinet, reveals a precise and delicate side of Ravel that is different from "Boléro" and "Pictures at an Exhibition." The music in each of the pieces, "Sleeping Beauty Pavane," "Dialogue between Beauty and the Beast," "Thumbing," and "Ledronette, Queen of the Pagodas," brings to mind the stories in their titles. The final piece, "The Fairy Garden," begins with a serene, pacing triplet, and, led by melodies for celesta, solo violin, and solo viola, is captivating, ultimately, with a magnificent sound that makes one feel as if one has stepped into a heavenly paradise, bathed in light and filled with blossoming flowers. This is a piece that we would love for audiences to experience for themselves in the hall.

What made you start playing an instrument?

In my high school string club, the double bass player quit during the summer vacation, so I decided to take over.

What is important in a performance

Approaching the work with a fresh feeling every time

One of my favorite songs

Ravel: Ballet music "Ma Mère l'Oye"

This song, based on a nursery rhyme, is filled with a gentle tone reminiscent of a story being read aloud.
The orchestration, in which the entire orchestra adds variously changing colors to melodies centered on woodwind instruments such as flute and clarinet, reveals a precise and delicate side of Ravel that is different from "Boléro" and "Pictures at an Exhibition." The music in each of the pieces, "Sleeping Beauty Pavane," "Dialogue between Beauty and the Beast," "Thumbing," and "Ledronette, Queen of the Pagodas," brings to mind the stories in their titles. The final piece, "The Fairy Garden," begins with a serene, pacing triplet, and, led by melodies for celesta, solo violin, and solo viola, is captivating, ultimately, with a magnificent sound that makes one feel as if one has stepped into a heavenly paradise, bathed in light and filled with blossoming flowers.
This is a piece that we would love for audiences to experience for themselves in the hall.

Miki Narusawa

Contrabass

About the Japan Philharmonic