Hitomi Oba - Part 1

For Good Measure, by Ensemble for These Times (E4TT)
Episode 156: Hitomi Oba - Part 1

In this week’s episode, we talk to Hitomi Oba about her musical upbringing, having a sister in the same field and their experience growing up with immigrant parents in Berkeley, CA. If you enjoyed today’s conversation and want to know more about Hitomi Oba, check her out here: https://www.hitomioba.com/. This episode was originally recorded in December 2023.

This podcast is made possible in part by a grant from the California Arts Council and generous donors, like you. Want to support For Good Measure and E4TT? Make a tax-deductible donation or sign up for our newsletter, and subscribe to the podcast!

Intro music: “Trifolium” by Gabriela Ortiz, performed by E4TT (Ilana Blumberg, violin; Abigail Monroe, cello; Margaret Halbig, piano),  as part of “Below the Surface: Music by Women Composers,” January 29, 2022
Outro music: “Lake Turkana” by Marcus Norris, performed by E4TT (Margaret Halbig, piano), as part of “Alchemy,” October 15, 2021

Transcription courtesy of Otter.ai.
Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1903729/episodes/17155799

Producer, Host, and E4TT co-founder: Nanette McGuinness
Co-producer and Audio Engineer: Stephanie M. Neumann
Podcast Cover Art: Brennan Stokes
Interns: Renata Volchinskaya, Sam Mason

Chapters

• 0:22 In this week's episode, we're joined by Hitomi Oba, who we spoke to in December 2023.
• 0:29 You're both a saxophonist and a multi-genre composer. Could you tell us about your musical journey? Does the performer or the composer predominate, or are they pretty even?
• 3:31 So you and your sister, Erika, who was on our podcast last season, are both wind players, and you're both composers. What was it like growing up in such a musical family? Was it competitive, supportive, a little of both?

Transcript

Nanette McGuinness  00:00

[INTRO MUSIC] Welcome to For Good Measure, an interview series celebrating diverse composers and other creative artists sponsored by a grant from the California Arts Council. I'm Nanette McGuinness, Artistic Executive Director of Ensemble for These Times. [INTRO MUSIC ENDS] In this week's episode, we're joined by Hitomi Oba, who we spoke to in December 2023. You're both a saxophonist and a multi-genre composer. Could you tell us about your musical journey? Does the performer or the composer predominate, or are they pretty even?

Hitomi Oba  00:40

Yeah! That's a great question. It really depends on this, you know, the period of my life, what projects are going on. I like to think of myself as both a performer and a composer, and increasingly, I'm calling myself an improviser as well, kind of, you know, it's a part of being a performer, but it's another identity I think I've embraced. I started out by singing, as many musicians do, right as a child, singing was like the best thing. And then throughout, you know, my youth, I sang in various choirs. But I so I started by singing, and then I started piano around, maybe like four ish, but like, really a little more seriously, around six ish, and then in fourth grade, in the public schools in Berkeley where I grew up, they presented us with opportunity to play instruments in orchestra or in band. And I just, for some reason, I was like, "I'm going to be a violinist when I grow up." [laughs] I have no idea. It's like, I'm going to be a violinist. And then midway through fourth grade, we had to move to Japan for half a year because we had some family that were ill there, and my mom went to help. So she took us along. And the elementary schools, there are very much more of a wind band kind of program across the country. So there were no string programs in most of the public schools there. So, you know, said, "Well, what's available?" And they said, Well, there's only one saxophonist. So I said, "Oh, that sounds that sounds fine." And then when I came back, it was the decision of like, "well, you can't do both," you know, because it took place at the same time. And I said, well, which I remember thinking like, "Well, which one would I miss more not being able to physically engage with?" And I thought, you know, saxophone. I like the feeling of that. So I continued, switched over to tender saxophone. And, yeah, lot of decisions along the way. I kept playing classical pianos and jazz piano. Through high school, I started composing. I was really lucky to grow up in a educationally really rich and supportive environment, you know, in the East Bay and so, you know, I had the opportunity to engage with composition programs as composed of student school for and also this program called young musicians program that was on the UC Berkeley campus, and I was able to do composition through there as well, as well as saxophone and piano and ensembles and such. Yeah. And then I eventually got my BA in, actually, ethnomusicology, but it was because it housed the jazz program. So I was a saxophone jazz major within the ethnomusicology program. And then for my Master's, I switched over to classical composition, and to get my Master's in classical composition.

Nanette McGuinness  03:16

Cool. Where were those? 

Hitomi Oba  03:19

That was at UCLA. 

Nanette McGuinness  03:20

That's when you moved Southern California?

Hitomi Oba  03:22

That's when I moved to Southern California. That's correct, yeah, and I've been here since. So, yeah, there are different departments, but the same school.

Nanette McGuinness  03:29

That's great. So you and your sister, Erika, who was on our podcast last season, are both wind players, and you're both composers. What was it like growing up in such a musical family? Was it competitive, supportive, a little of both?

Hitomi Oba  03:46

Yeah, you know, as I get older, I've been appreciating more and more that we were able to have so many shared experiences. So, you know, not only growing within similar environments, you know, my parents gave us the same opportunities, near like, the same activities, and that led us to be able to kind of spend more time together, you know, in various after school things. And we kind of went to somewhat different paths, you know, after we went to college, you know. And our focuses were different, and our interests were a little different within music, a little bit different, but it's interesting to see now that our interests and values and directions within music and also outside of music, just as people are kind of overlapping again. I mean, I attribute a lot of that to the fact that we had a lot of, you know, the shared experiences and shared environments when we were growing up. So even though we kind of, you know, split off a little bit, we're kind of finding our way back to similar things, which is, I appreciate that so much, not just only to, you know, tangibly do projects together, you know, but also just to be able to like understand each other better, and to have someone that really like gets you, you know, as a person, but also as a musician. And so, yeah, you know, it's just the two of us. So I really appreciate having this, this relationship with her. And, you know, it's our environments where, I guess, quite unique. You know, our parents are immigrants, but we grew up in a very like counterculture kind of environment in Berkeley. You know, a lot of the Japanese people around us were, you know, they valued the arts, you know, and they're, you know, personally examining spirituality and philosophy and, you know, like non material values, and, you know, like nourishment, like everyone was really good at cooking, you know, like all these kinds of things that we took for granted are feeding, you know, finding their way back into our creative practices. Obviously, the educational programs I talked about, you know, we have a lot of shared mentors as well. So, you know, as educators now, you know, we're both educators as well. We can kind of, like, draw on that and have similar frames of references, you know, when we're bouncing ideas back and forth with each other and such. So yeah, and obviously, our parents, we share the same parents, you know. So, yeah, you know. And I think it's interesting, I was mentioning that we're kind of more overlapping and somewhat converging on a lot of our creative directions. And I'm seeing where, you know, because we talk a lot, we're like, oh, yeah, you know, like, I recently realized that's, you know, having to do with, like some, you know, a value of one of our parents and another, no other parents, you know. And so, you know, broadly, they kind of gave us the value and importance of art and music, you know, say this is a really important thing. You know, arts are important for humans and the universe. [laughs] 

Nanette McGuinness  06:36

That's true!

Hitomi Oba  06:37

Yes! And, you know, and that was kind of the backdrop within which we practiced music, you know. But yes, more and more you know specific things as well, we're seeing surface more and more. So yeah, overall, I'm just very thankful to have another person you know to exist with that I can share these things with.

Nanette McGuinness  06:56

I definitely noticed that as my sister and I get older, we're getting closer again. Also, our paths were fairly different, but still that we're getting closer. And I'm curious, you said that you and Erika had different paths along the way. Do you want to expand on that any? 

Hitomi Oba  07:14

Yeah, I guess so! I mean, so for instance, like, she's gone into theater quite a bit, you know, she went to theater quite a bit. And I that's not really a part. I mean, I've played in production shows and stuff, but that wasn't a large part of what I've been doing. For instance, you know, she has experiences that I have not know, she played in orchestra for a while, you know, which that is not a part of my musical practice, yeah. And, you know, I think even though we both got our Master's in composition, our programs were very different, for instance, you know. So I think what we're exposed to, you know, I did ethnomusicology, you know, and within that, you know, I was exposed to certain different kinds of non-western genres of music, although yes. And then she kind of explored some of other non-western kinds of music, you know. So we got a lot of different kinds of experiences and exposures along the way, I think, in some different directions, different collaborators, you know, different types of projects that we were encountering, yeah, and even within, you know, like, she got a jazz degree as well, and I got a jazz degree. But within, you know, what we're calling a jazz education, it was very different as well, you know? So the the focuses were different, the types of mentors we had were different, you know, the kinds of playing environments and writing environments we were encountering were very different as well. Yeah, but, but I think as we get to be more selective, as we're kind of inquiring what is important to us now, we're seeming to kind of overlap a little bit more again.

Nanette McGuinness  08:47

It makes sense, and it sounds like you came from such a rich family background. It's really nice.

Hitomi Oba  08:53

We're so grateful. Yeah, I know not all the professional music or, you know, not all of my peers share that kind of experience.

Nanette McGuinness  09:02

[OUTRO MUSIC] Thank you for listening to For Good Measure and a special thank you to our guest, Hitomi Oba, for joining us today. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast by clicking on the subscribe button, and support us by sharing it with your friends, posting about it on social media, and leaving us a rating and a review. To learn more about E4TT, our concert season online and in the Bay Area, or to make a tax-deductible donation, please visit us at e4tt.org. This podcast is made possible in part by a grant from the California Arts Council and generous donors like you. For Good Measure is produced by Nanette McGuinness and Ensemble for These Times and design by Brennan Stokes, with special thanks to co-producer and audio engineer Stephanie M. Neumann. Remember to keep supporting equity in the arts and tune in next week "for good measure." [OUTRO MUSIC ENDS]