Zither Players Cross Cultural Boundaries in Performance

IIIZ+ (pronounced “three-zee-plus”) may sound like a codename for some kind of top-secret underground organization, but it refers to a musical group that doesn’t hold any secrets about its desire to bring together a unique repertoire in the face of ethnic and linguistic barriers.

The name stands for “three zithers plus percussion,” a zither ensemble whose members hail from Germany, Alaska, Taiwan, and Japan. IIIZ+ performed a free concert on Wednesday, Oct. 17 in the Tsai Auditorium at the Center for Government and International Studies.

The zither is a large stringed instrument used in East Asian music; with or without frets, it is something like a cross between a lap guitar and a harp. IIIZ+ combines zithers from China, Japan, and Korea, along with a changgu, a type of Korean drum. The zithers featured in Wednesday’s show were about five feet long and made of various woods.

More than just combining zithers from three different geographical locations, the ensemble aims to set itself apart from popular conceptions of traditional Asian music.

“We’re a very special group,” says percussionist and music director Il-Ryun Chung. “There is no existing repertoire, so we are playing mostly brand new songs. For Asian instruments, it’s one of the first attempts to try this.”

PLAYING A RUBBER BAND

“Each one has a distinctive character,” says Jocelyn Clark, the founder of IIIZ+, of the zithers. “What I like about the zither compared to, for instance, the harp, which is a very beautiful instrument, is the ability to make ornaments. The string goes the length of the instrument and you can pluck with your right hand and create ornaments with your left.”

“It’s almost like playing a rubber band,” she elaborates. “The tighter you hold it, the higher the pitch. The looser you tune it, the lower the pitch. You can manipulate the string on the left side. It’s very expressive.”

Wednesday’s performance was organized by the Harvard Korea Institute. Clark, a graduate of the Korean Studies doctoral program, had originally contacted the Institute to publicize their concert at MIT and was then invited to perform at Harvard.

Clark’s ensemble has existed for a decade in various incarnations, and its current lineup has been a long time coming.

“I started playing koto [a Japanese 13-stringed zither] when I was a student at Wesleyan,” says Clark. “I had been an exchange student in Japan and began playing when they started the koto program at the college.”

Her idea for the ensemble was fully realized at the 1997 opening of the Harvard University Asia Center, where she played alongside three of her teachers, and debuted two original pieces from Harvard composers.

SHIMMERING ZITHERS

Wednesday’s show featured four pieces from their repertoire. The first, “Three Zithers and a Pair of Scissors” was composed by Clark’s husband Stefan Hakenberg, who also received his Ph.D. from Harvard.

Each song had six or seven different movements, separated by what looked like very complicated tuning processes. The zithers can chime and shimmer at some points and call to mind a pedal steel or blues guitar at others. The instruments are mainly plucked, though they were also hit with drumsticks and scraped to create a swishing sound.

After the show, audience members were invited down to the stage to try their hand at playing a zither.

The newest members of the ensemble, Yi-Chieh Lai and Ryuko Mizutani, explained the logistical differences of their instruments. For instance, Lai’s Chinese zheng has 21 steel strings; Mizutani’s Japanese koto has 13 silk strings.

THREE ZEE PLUS

IIIZ+ faces substantial challenges, not the least of which is their unique long-distance arrangement.

The four members currently live separately in Berlin, Juneau, Taipei, and New York, respectively. Coordinating international tours and scheduling practice times can be a bit of a stretch.

“That’s why we try to get residences,” Chung explains, referring to programs where artists are given space to live and work at reduced cost. After finishing a residence at MIT, they are returning for another stay at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass.

There have also been obstacles in combining Chinese, Japanese, and Korean varieties of zither in the midst of ongoing political tensions between the three countries.

“It’s one of the reasons why it’s been very difficult to get this together,” Clark explains. “There are also a lot of linguistic problems we’ve struggled to negotiate. It’s been an interesting run. We have different cuisines, languages, customs, ways of being in the world. That has been a problem in the past, but now we have a really good group that works well together.”

Even their name is meant to overcome the obstacle of cross-cultural appeal.

“We wanted a name that you could say in any language,” Clark says. “‘Three zee plus’ can be said in German, in French. It sounds sort of silly, but it really works, since none of us share a mother tongue.”