Antipasto

This piece was composed in 2022 as a commission work for the 50th regular concert of the Takamatsu First Senior High School Symphonic Wind Ensemble in Kagawa Prefecture, Japan, and was performed for the first time in the world by the same group under the direction of Koji Ishikawa. The high school in question is a prestigious school that has produced many excellent musicians.

When Satoshi Yagisawa was asked to compose a piece that could be played at the opening of every concert, he named it Antipasto, which means “appetizer” in Italian cuisine. This humorous work, which likens a concert to a restaurant course meal, condenses the composer's typically flamboyant and dramatic music into a digestible whole of about three and a half minutes.