Meet Sumi: Behind the scenes with Eight Eight Time

Journey Arts’ executive director sat down with each of the composers of Eight Eight Time to learn more about the spark for their compositional work. Read on to hear more from Sumi Tonooka, one of the pianist-composers pouring her creative talents into Eight Eight Time!

CRS: What were your first thoughts when Kendrah Butler-Waters approached you about Eight Eight Time?

ST: I thought it was a fabulous idea. Undertaking music with a social justice theme is right up my alley and I felt inspired to want to come up with something meaningful. And the whole idea of four pianos is so unusual. Plus I know everyone — I have sisterhood-ship with each of these women — and I was very excited. 

Sumi Tonooka. Photo: Tshay Williams.

CRS: And what was the spark for your issue area?

ST: I’m investigating book banning and censorship/self-censorship and its impact through my work, and it stemmed, actually, from the idea of book burning. Much of my family history on my Japanese side was lost because my grandmother felt the need to burn all of our history — her diaries, family books, her photographs from Japan, anything that was identifiable as “Japanese”— when the World War II incarceration happened. My family and the families on Bainbridge Island were amongst the first families taken after Pearl Harbor was bombed. My mom shared that as being one of the most traumatic memories of her life, my grandmother throwing all of those memories and our family history into the fire. My family was later taken from their home and put into concentration camps, but that memory stood out for my mom. She later found out that many Japanese families were doing the same thing because of the racial hysteria during this time — many Japanese people felt that it would be protective to not have these things that could possibly be used as some kind of evidence of their being Japanese.

The whole thing about censorship is relevant, especially right now. This piece is my way through music to help fight against the tide of facism, racism, and sexism in our country and world. There are groups around the country going into the schools and taking books out of the libraries. It’s a movement to censor ideas and silence powerful literary voices of freedom and liberation. It really concerns me and it is so troubling to see writers like Toni Morrison to Judy Blume banned. The top 5 banned books of 2023 are from Black and LGBTQ writers. Who is making these decisions? How do they enforce them? And how dare they? 

It’s troubling to see young people not having access to ideas and books by brilliant writers about the issues of our times, especially sexual identity and racism. There are so many levels of thought in and around banning books — and in censoring artists, writers, and novelists. It makes me revisit the idea of how valuable it is to have physical books — just to be able to hold it and refer to it and come back to it — and how some books ground you in a certain way.

CRS: So how did you use the story circles to explore these ideas, and to relate it back to the larger work of Eight Eight Time? 

ST: The story circles helped me personify and personalize the issue outside of my own experience to other people’s experiences. Participants shared gripping stories, and they helped me move deeper into how I was going to create. 

Everyone shared something poignant — it made me realize just how important the issue is, and how critical it is to have access to books that  can expand your mind and experience beyond yourself, that can make you feel more seen and less alone, and help broaden your worldview and perspective. I realized that our communities are like villages in a way — and that aspect of being in community is essential to the whole subject. It’s about people working together in order to preserve the things that are really important, and books are one of the ways we remember and memorialize our stories and histories.

CRS: How does your music reflect your story and what you learned in the story circle?

ST: The first piece is serious, strong, almost defiant. It’s dark and light and joyful because it’s about people and community and preserving the best of us. The other piece is based on a story told by one of the participants. As a young person, struggling with their sexual identity, and in a dangerous state of depression, they’d put their hand on a book in a bookstore they’d never been in, and the stories in that book — which were coming out stories — helped to save that person’s life. Sometimes the book finds the person.  

I was thinking about community and piano as a percussion instrument — and that was an area of continuity that helped tie the pieces together. I loosely based the works off drum rhythms, working to ground the work, but also had a rhythmic thread that could be a focal point for bringing four pianists together. 

I think about us each as an orchestra unto ourselves. I wanted to play with the ranges that are available on four pianos, and think about the things that are possible in a setting with four pianos. Because there’s so much reverberation and vibration — four pianos is a lot of sound! — I’m trying to be very aware of where things lay orchestrally, and experiment with the possibilities that I wouldn’t have with just one piano — I mean, there are eight hands, forty fingers, 352 keys and four mighty souls.

CRS: What are you excited for audiences to hear?

ST: The many ways in which we can play together as four pianists and as four friends sharing this very special space of creating and performing together. Part of the strength of the piece and of this collaboration is that everyone has their own unique strengths. We’re all very different and unique — it’s like serving a bunch of different dishes at a potluck. Everyone brings something unique to the table, and so we have a much richer choice. Plus we’re also learning a lot from each other and from each other’s ideas. I started writing and it’s taken me into this whole area where I’m re-visiting my own community during the composition of the piece. I ended up having a part of the piece that’s a complete surprise — and I even surprised myself with it. I won’t say what it is — I want people to be surprised, too!

Find your tickets here and join us for Eight Eight Time on April 3, 4, and 5!