The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles Set to Music

From a piece on WQXR...

Wind-Up Bird Preludes engages in some pretty head-spinning musical and literary referencing. The title of the set comes from Haruki Murakami’s massive novel The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Murakami’s novel itself is divided into three separately published parts, each named after classical pieces, respectively Rossini’s The Thieving Magpie, Schumann’s Bird as Prophet and “Birdcatcher” in reference to Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Jazz music also plays a central roll in the musical backdrop of the novel. I was always impressed by the sophistication and depth of meaning in Murakami’s choices of these pieces and thought it would be an interesting project to bring these presences of to Rossini, Schumann, Mozart, and jazz full circle as fleeting presences in a set of pieces that respond to the form of his novel.