New Juilliard Ensemble’s Focus! Festival Under Joel Sachs

Chinese contemporary music has attained considerable visibility and influence in the West in recent decades. Chinese-born composers, some of them scarred by the Cultural Revolution, have made major inroads in the classical music scene in the United States and elsewhere.

For various reasons, Japanese contemporary music has had less impact, despite the efforts of worthy organizations like Music From Japan, which celebrates its 40th anniversary on Feb. 7 and 8 at the Asia Society. But now the Juilliard School is also rallying to the cause, devoting its annual weeklong festival of contemporary music, Focus!, to Japanese music since 1945.

Joel Sachs, the festival’s director, conducted the New Juilliard Ensemble in the opening concert last Friday at the school’s Peter Jay Sharp Theater, and after chamber concerts from Monday through Thursday evenings, he will lead the Juilliard Orchestra this Friday to close the festival. Thirty-nine composers are represented, the lone Western interloper being Debussy.

Focus! Festival, featuring Japanese music since 1945, continues through Friday at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater, 155 West 65th Street, Manhattan; 212-769-7406, juilliard.edu.

A version of this review appears in print on January 26, 2015, on page C3 of the New York edition with the headline: Distilling Japanese Sound From a Varied Catalog . Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe

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