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Yoshiaki Onishi

@yoshionishi.com
162 followers 70 following 361 posts

composer/conductor/clarinetist, employed by his boss Dorian the Cat (he/him) More: linktr.ee/yoshiakionishi

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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 11/09/2026
Somewhat of a CW here, while this post is not about me per se: what follows here is about 9-11 and people whose lives changed forever on and after that day. Now that I do not teach at a university anymore (at least this year), I don't really have people to speak to about this. But it is something
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Peter Ullrich @peterullrich.com · 08/09/2026
🚨 Announcing Pushin 🚨 Now officially: I'm announcing Pushin.eu, a git hosting platform built and run entirely in Europe. Think GitHub/GitLab but European, better, and faster. Built with #ElixirLang and #RustLang. peterullrich.com/announcing-p...
peterullrich.com
Announcing Pushin
I'm launching Pushin.eu, a git hosting platform built and run entirely in Europe.
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 07/09/2026
My boss’s response to the Labor Day
Dorian the cat, whom I affectionately call my boss, sleeps while his paws are crossed and face is down.
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 04/09/2026
Accomplishment of the week: I introduced @shadypines.bsky.social to "Hoketus" by Louis Andriessen. It was also a double accomplishment, in that it was the first time for me to listen to that piece from beginning to end in one sitting.
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 31/08/2026
In a way, where Ligeti left off with his “Cordes à vide” and “Arc-en-ciel” piano etudes, @santibeis.bsky.social picks up and takes it farther with this piece. Or maybe he is not going far at all, but rather replenishing the sonic image with a higher resolution. Compelling.
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 30/08/2026
It seems like I’ve been writing quite a bit for flute as of late, though all three pieces involving flute has been that of either massive expansions of previous pieces or finally getting myself to finish them, what with moving from Finale to LilyPond.
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 29/08/2026
And just like that, it's as though I didn't even exist.
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 26/08/2026
It surely feels weird that I don’t have to go to school around this time during the day/week. Not that I feel lazy; I surely have a lot to occupy myself with at home. It does feel like the past three years was a rapid dream from which I just awoke.
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 26/08/2026
Today I sent a few photos for Dorian’s ophthalmologist to look at, just to be sure he is ok. He was, but in retrospect I feel like I sent three cute photos of Dorian just to show how cute he is. Well, he is cute. People may take away my job or whatever but not his supreme beauty.
Dorian the cat and boss on the carpetDorian the cat and boss on the armrest of the sofa
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 23/08/2026
As always, the cookbook is available here: github.com/yoshiakionis...
github.com
GitHub - yoshiakionishi/lilypond-snippets: LilyPond Contemporary Notation Cookbook: Snippets and Their Grammars
LilyPond Contemporary Notation Cookbook: Snippets and Their Grammars - yoshiakionishi/lilypond-snippets
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 23/08/2026
I've finally updated #LilyPond Contemporary Notation Cookbook. Now compatible with version 2.26. With that, I've included some new functions I recently developed. There are a few more I will add in the subsequent updates, which I expect to be more frequent. Happy LilyPonding!
A screenshot from Onishi's LilyPond Contemporary Notation Cookbook, this one with "Arpeggio with Arrowhead and Vertical Hairpins."
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 22/08/2026
I wrote an extensive analysis of his string trio "...zu..." as part of the doctoral dissertation that I defended in 2015. I spent time with that piece for nearly two years. Each moment studying it revealed something compelling. It defined in me my what music analysis is. doi.org/10.7916/D8CJ...
doi.org
Making sure you're not a bot!
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 18/08/2026
This is good to ponder upon.
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The Nation Magazine @thenation.com · 16/08/2026
There are jobs for college instructors. They do require degrees. But the pay and the benefits are abysmal. Another take on the state of the academy:
thenation.com
Adjuncting Until the End of Time
Universities now have more adjuncts than tenured and tenure-track professors combined. The conditions are unsustainable—for professors and students alike.
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 16/08/2026
At an Indian restaurant to treat myself for finishing my piece. There’s a public karaoke party (?) going on right now. At first they sang a song in F major, then G major next. I wondered if the next one would be in A major. IT WAS! I think I like this place now (even though it’s tad too loud…)
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 16/08/2026
Finished my piece. Grateful to those who patiently waited for me. It wasn’t an easy month. It won’t be for a while, but I am glad I saw the double bar finally.
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 12/08/2026
About 20 years ago (when Durand scores were prohibitively pricey), as a poor college student I played pachinko in Japan with my dad & that got me about $300, with which I went to a local music store to buy the score of Messiaen's "Vingt Regards..." It's a depressing revelation, but not surprising.
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 09/08/2026
That I am missing concerts to attend in NYC these next few weeks is one of many side effects of my current job ending. I hope I will come out of it all by writing pieces that will be mounted in that city.
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 07/08/2026
In other news, I am glad I didn’t upgrade my OS; it turns out that, after all these years, I still need to open Finale for a project I am undertaking for a client. Though the moment I start to use it, I can feel in my right wrist why this software nearly caused tendinitis.
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 06/08/2026
Re: criticism in general, I am always reminded of how my music was once written as a "waste of fine instrumental talent." Can't say much about movie criticisms, but as far as music criticism is concerned, there are many so-called "critics" who don't even know how to listen. And no, [1/3]
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 01/08/2026
Note to self: an entry on vertical hairpin + directional arpeggio to be added in the next edition of my #LilyPond Cookbook (Earlier attempts on this post rendered the image pitch dark...oops)
A musical example in which a quartal chord has a directional arpeggio sign as well as vertical hairpin. I plan to include this in the next edition of my LilyPond Cookbook.
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 30/07/2026
These days I am on LinkedIn not so much for its intended use, but for some thrills of chancing upon two posts on my phone screen that are so contrasting that it’s vertiginous and oddly aesthetic.
Screenshot of LinkedIn screen with two posts next to each other that can’t be any more contrasting. One is about how AI labs are buying, scanning, and shredding many copies of rare books, and right below it is the ad for “OpenAI for Business.” The OP finds that the contrast of these two posts is so jarring that it is, in a sense, aesthetic.
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 29/07/2026
I will be working on updating LilyPond Snippets Cookbook in mid-August to ensure the codes run on the most recent LilyPond version. Currently I’m composing and trying to meet a deadline for which I got an extension under an extenuating circumstance, but I don’t want to delay…
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 29/07/2026
Regarding an email communication I received somewhere, I am thinking: on one hand, free meals are great. On the other hand, I won’t probably add a lot to the conversations…
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 28/07/2026
I am thinking of redoing my website at some point, and Astro was something I came across, then I came across this, which is really cool to see. Maybe might I host my contemporary notation cookbook on my website?
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 27/07/2026
Stumbled upon something I wrote in 2017, in which, reacting to an article I read, I wrote paragraphs of reflection, which is actually my criticism/skepticism on AI back then. Nine years ago. Was my thought too soon? Did I stop growing since then? Maybe will edit and put on my website at some point.
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 27/07/2026
This month has been a month that, by some accident, tests what friendship is. A while ago I had a chat with someone who had a rather strict definition of it owning to their background. I was glad I wasn’t alone when feeling severely conflicted when I came across the word after all that happened.
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 26/07/2026
While the world may be crumbling into pieces, and I certainly am uncertain what will happen with my life come September, being able to help someone with Scheme codes certainly helps with my mood a little bit.
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 25/07/2026
Yes, I am taking a break from my other social media account. I am not sure when I will return to it. I thought doing so would do me some good detoxing, but then another “professional” social media is essentially in the paradigm of anti-AI people vs. AI-glorifying people. Too dizzying.
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 23/07/2026
I do not, and as a musician, the only word I use that begins with these first five letters is “Trumpet” and even then I rush my fingers on the keyboard to get to the last two letters, feeling enormous guilt for a split second each time
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 23/07/2026
Some thoughts. While I was at my first grad school, my composition teacher used to tell me: "You sound like you are having to defend yourself" He was referring to me presenting my work in the Composition Seminar and students back then were overly critical, prone to attacking whoever was [1/5]
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 22/07/2026
Very appropriate
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 21/07/2026
I had my screen protector replaced less than two weeks ago and it’s already cracked. I don’t remember throwing the phone on the floor. Maybe it couldn’t handle what I was going through 🤷🏻‍♂️
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 19/07/2026
These days, despite all that is happening, I am nonetheless writing, and oddly enough—especially these days many posturing pieces abound—the piece isn’t about anything. It is perhaps about something, but that isn’t what’s important and I feel liberated, for once.
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 12/07/2026
Great news for LilyPonders! Thank you @jeanas.bsky.social !!!
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 11/07/2026
And the work by Delage, "Sept haï-kaïs" (it wasn't just Messiaen who had a title like that!) for soprano and instrumental ensemble, was a piece that I came across in the great hardship I experienced in 2021, and now I am at such a juncture again, I am fondly reminded of it: youtu.be/MjN627KiYsc?...
youtu.be
Maurice Delage - Sept haï-kaïs
YouTube video by Precipotato
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 11/07/2026
Met with someone whom I got to know over the past few years at the workplace. She treated me for the breakfast. It was heartfelt. I then came home, took shower, then took a very long nap. I actually don’t know how long I slept, but it must be two hours. I have a few more emails to write.
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 10/07/2026
Thankfully algorithm seems to understand that I have no interest in soccer/football.
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 09/07/2026
I wish I could be in full agreement with this.
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 08/07/2026
Recently it’s been as though I am having one-on-one meetings with devils who each brings the feelings: betrayed, forsaken, worthless, the inability to trust people, annoyed by many things so easily, and it’s been exhausting to send them away. At least Dorian’s been taking nebulizer like a champ.
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 07/07/2026
I thought of something and I read Trakl. I wonder which sonata by Schubert that is referenced in this poem. Might be one of the late sonatas? www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57772/...
poetryfoundation.org
Underway
At evening they bore the stranger into the death parlor; a scent of tar; the faint rustling of red sycamores; the dark flight of jackdaws; guard was set…
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Monica Carol Miller @monicacmiller.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
6/26/26 Palindrome Day
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 26/06/2026
I cherish the memory of conducting the Japanese premiere of her "Siren Song" in the summer of 2008 at the Pacific Music Festival, where back then there was a program for composers. Juhi Bansal, Pui-shan Cheung, she, and I were the fellows that year. What a lineup!
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 23/06/2026
The more I read something like this on a daily basis now, the more I am convinced that humanity as a whole is: 1. Too lazy to work hard, and 2. Too busy to work hard. (NB: I said this exact thing to someone in a conversation on a completely different topic)
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 25/03/2026
Something HUGE is coming in the fall 👀
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Reposted by Yoshiaki Onishi
Phil Gentry @pmgentry.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
Intriguing?
A $25 dollar devotional candle with an AAUP logo
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The Onion @theonion.com · 09/03/2026
Timothée Chalamet Under Fire For Dismissive Comments About Traditional Japanese Puppet Theater Form ‘Bunraku’ theonion.com/timothee-chalamet-unde…
Timothée Chalamet Under Fire For Dismissive Comments About Traditional Japanese Puppet Theater Form ‘Bunraku’
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 08/03/2026
Sure, my music is seldom performed, but I guess I shouldn’t bemoan it when I consider that a piece I am practicing now by a dear former colleague of mine was once on the blink of disappearance altogether
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Scott Gleason, PhD @buddytwo.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
On my way! @yoshionishi.com www.taleaensemble.org/event-detail...
taleaensemble.org
Talea Sequenze III | Talea Ensemble
Berio’s Sequenza IX (Rane Moore, clarinet), Sequenza XII (Adrian Morejon, bassoon), Sequenza III (Lucy Shelton, voice)
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Yoshiaki Onishi @yoshionishi.com · 18/01/2026
Taruskin ftw 🙌
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