Tokyo Tech Visionary Project is a compulsory subject for the first-year students at Tokyo Tech. It encourages self-discovery and aims to motivate students to set individual goals so that they can envision their own path throughout the four years of engineering studies at the undergraduate level. The course alternates between lectures and group work. Throughout the course, students will listen to some talks about the non-engineering field that have not been encountered yet. It takes importance on the development of personality, sociability and creativity. It also allows students to identify, scrutinize, and convey problems, enhancing the interactive set of skills needed for efficient communication and presentation.
The final lecture by a guest speaker commenced last May 19, 2016 with a talk by Mr. Slavomir S. Kowalewski and a performance by professional soloist, Ms. Kaori Nakamura.
1. Lecture (12th session)
Upon entering the classroom, everyone was surprised to see a digital piano with two large speakers . The room was transformed into a mix of mini-concert room and classroom. The refreshing vibe was highly relevant to the lecture of the day. Mr. Slavomir S. Kowaleski, or Slavek, talked about “Music in our lives from the perspective of a musician”. He drew everyone to his perspective by introducing his background, from his years in Poland, up to now in Tokyo. The talk was well-delivered beginning with a brief introduction of music and its evolution, the problems being faced by both musician and the art itself, and ending it with his life as a musician and his advice to the students.
It was interesting to learn that in the beginning when there were no rules or standards of creating or reading music, people who were capable of creating music were truly gifted and often heard of only by the elite people in society. Through the efforts of Bach and Mozart, music was formalized and made available even to ordinary people. During post-modern era, the standards of music were then destroyed by contemporary musicians like Wagner and Schönberg.
What sets apart music from other forms of art was that music is bounded by time and yet in the short moments, emotions could overflow.
Slavek also introduced the trends of how music was being heard or played as well, starting with live performances and phonograms, to modern-day cloud streaming. He brought awareness to the students and the audience regarding the disadvantage of the “cloud” to musicians in terms of their rights to the ownership of the their compositions, their deserved compensation, and the eventual degradation of music brought about by the simplification to make one.
His talk encouraged us to love music more, to be more cautious to what we listen to, and to be more conscious when listening to music. He invites us to listen more to music for the sake of listening to it and not just as background music of our lives.
Finally, his most important message to his audience was for us to be our own masters or maestros, not to be dictated on which path to choose in life nor what sort of music we should listen. Through the pursuit of music which he enjoys in spite of the challenges, Slavek feels the true definition of freedom.
After the lecture, Ms. Kaori Nakamura brought out the emotion of the audience with her three solo performances. For the first piece, Slavek together with Ms. Kaori Nakamura performed a piano and song duo of the classic French love song entitled, “À chloris” composed by Reynaldo Hahn (melody) and Théophiele de Viau (lyrics). The second piece is entitled, “Stripsody”, composed by Cathy Berberian with the intention of exploring onomatopoeic sounds of comic strips. The performance was very entertaining blending visual art with music. The final piece was entitled, “Itsuki Lullaby”, a Japanese lullaby and folk song originating from Kumamoto prefecture, Japan. Before the last performance, Kaori introduced a traditional notation of music in Japan which was very different from Western music notation.
During the lecture, Prof. Fumio Arisaka, professor emeritus of Tokyo Tech and a friend of Kaori, also attended as audience.
2. Group Work (13th session)
During the next session, the students were given an opportunity to share what they have learned from the previous lecture and how the liberal arts subject, music, is relevant to their lives and society. Below are photos of the group work. After each group’s small discussion, the leader shared to everyone the main points of interest of their individual members.
The students knew beforehand knew that they will be listening to a 
talk about music but they didn’t expect to learn how how to be critical about modern-day music and even the cloud itself. Initially, a good number agreed with Slavek that indeed the quality of music has degraded. With further discussion, the consensus of the students shifted from the degradation of music quality to the degradation of the lyrics in songs. Whereas, composition of melody is continually evolving with genres increasing or merging to bring about new forms of music.
Students also noticed the similarity of music to science itself. For example, people will always recognize the fathers of modern science similar to that of Bach and Mozart. Yet, why can’t we have a modern-day Einstein or Newton? A few answers were raised such as the increase in the fields of studies that each fields have become relevant to society and that no field nor expert would necessarily stand out. Another would be that people have many things in their minds to think about specific advancements in science or music.
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Speakers background:
Mr. Slavomir Stanislaw Kowalewski (a.k.a. Slavek)
Slavek is an award-winning Polish composer and pianist based in Tokyo. His work on major film and broadcast productions includes original scores for NHK, Fuji Television, TV Tokyo, and TBS networks, as well as Japan’s top pop act, AKB48, and covers a wide range of musical genre, ranging from full classical orchestral scores to Japanese traditional, piano solo, jazz, electronic, minimal, and avant-garde. More information about Slavek and his works can be found here.
Ms. Kaori Nakamura
Ms. Nakamura received both her B.A. and M.S. in vocal performances from the Tokyo College of Music. As a scholarship student, she accomplished further study and training under the tutelage of Yoko Nomura and Fumiko Serizawa. Ms. Nakamura also studied under G. Bambry’s instruction, while participating in the International Summer Academy Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. After working as an assistant in the vocal music program at her alma mater, she traveled to France, where she received a generous support from the Rotary International Foundation and the Yamanashi Philanthropy Association in order to pursue deeper studies in singing at the National Conservatory of Strasburg. She has studied further in courses under Mari Kobayashi, F. Kubler, C. Sheide A. Anguster, and D. Dercourt. While teaching students in vocal music at the Diemeringen Music and Dancing School in Alsace, France. Ms. Nakamura made a debut as a vocalist and gave several concerts inside and outside of France. She was awarded second place in vocal music at the 41st French Music Competition. She also worked as an interpreter for vocal classes at the Kyoto France Academy of Music in 2012 and 2013. She is currently a part-time lecturer in vocal music at Kaiseika High School and teaches French at Yamanashi Eiwa High School. Ms. Nakamura is also a member of the French Japanese Society of Contemporary Music.
Written by Alvin C.G. Varquez