Keiko Yamada Controversy: 10 Years Later
A decade can offer a lookback period, giving us a historical perspective of events which were mere possibilities when it first happened. In the words of Mr. Clark: “This is how we tried to alert people in 2016…Carl Fischer was to alert the dealers that the names were changing to mine. The Letter asked music dealers to alert the music committees for state lists. This was sent out after these pieces were selected. Carl Fischer sent this to their dealer network, the sheet music dealers.”[1]
Did this work? Ten years later, two of Keiko Yamada’s pieces still remain on the 2025-2026 junior/middle/elementary orchestra list of required and suggested repertoire sent out by Indiana State School Music Association. Works by Mr. Clark are also on the same list, including Kon’nichiwa, which was originally published under the Keiko Yamada name. The “OOP” on the list signifies that the pieces are out of print, but it’s rare for things to disappear today in the age of infinite digital copies. Case in point: the scores are still available on various online outlets; while I will not link to these sites directly, the images below illustrate the persistent digital footprint of these works.
Keiko Yamada’s works continue to be performed worldwide. (For an updated list, please see my other post on this subject where I keep tabs on Keiko Yamada’s works still being performed today.) Again, I am struck by the joy of the teachers and the students performing Mr. Clark’s works. I still wonder if there could have been another way to deal with this incident, leading to deeper conversations. I also wonder how many Asian and Asian American composers were involved in the initial conversation. If I, a Japanese American musician, the very demographic which could have been most offended by the incident, had felt all along that cancellation was perhaps not the most appropriate way, could there have been others who felt similarly and did not speak up? Adding the fact that Carl Fischer Music carried on relatively unscathed, perhaps we can start to see the structural issues which allowed this to have happened in the first place.
Most notably, we can see the difficulty in correcting a work that has already been in circulation, especially any work which could be digitized. “Cancelling” stopped the perceived harm midtrack, which I agree was a necessity, but also deprived those affected from discussing how best to deal with residual issues, such as the long tail of available digital information in the form of scores and performances. The role and responsibility of Carl Fischer Music, the machine behind disseminating Keiko Yamada’s scores, were never adequately addressed.
Conflicts brought on by structural inertia vs. changing national identity are as old as time itself. We only need to look at where we are now as a nation. On a more personal note, although Asian Americans still only constitute about 7% of the U.S. population[2], we were the fastest growing population between 2000-2019.[3] As the nation approaches majority-minority, my hope is that we see changes in the attitudes which have been internalized over many generations. As a nation, I feel it is important to not perpetuate the harms but that we remain inclusive. This may have been a controversy about a pseudonym, which was (and still is) a common practice, but there is much we can still learn from it today.
[1] Jolley, J. (2019, November 7). The curious case of Keiko Yamada. New Music USA – Supporting the Sounds of Tomorrow. We Envision a Thriving, Connected, and Equitable Ecosystem for New Music Across the United States. https://newmusicusa.org/nmbx/the-curious-case-of-keiko-yamada/
[2] Krogstad, J. M., & Im, C. (2025, May 1). Key facts about Asian Americans. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/05/01/key-facts-about-asians-in-the-us/
[3] Budiman, A., & Ruiz, N. G. (2021, April 9). U.S. Asian population grew fastest of any race, ethnicity in 2000-2019. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/04/09/asian-americans-are-the-fastest-growing-racial-or-ethnic-group-in-the-u-s/
