Kunitaka Kokaji

Kunitaka Kokaji ( Japanese 小 鍛冶 邦隆 , Kokaji Kunitaka ) is a Japanese conductor and composer .

Life

Kokaji studied composition with Masayuki Nagatomi and Teizō Matsumura at the Tokyo University of the Arts , and was also assistant to the conductor Kazuo Yamada . He continued his education at the Conservatoire de Paris with Olivier Messiaen and Henriette Puig-Roget and at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna with Otmar Suitner . He then worked as a répétiteur in Paris and Vienna and took lessons from Franco Ferrara in Italy as well as from Igor Markevitch and Manuel Rosenthal .

He made his debut as a conductor with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra . He conducted the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra , the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra . He has conducted the Tokyo Sinfonietta since it was founded and gave concerts with it in Germany and France. In Japan he directed the premiere of Gabriel Fauré's opera Pénélope and the incidental music Pelléas et Mélisande in the original version.

Kokaji has been director and conductor of the contemporary music ensemble Tokyo COmeT since 1999 , with whom he performed John Palmer's "Koan" for shakuhachi and ensemble at the 2001 World Music Days in Yokohama and won the Keizo Saji Award ( 佐治 敬 三 賞 ). In the 2003-04 season he gave a concert in Paris with the French contemporary music ensemble 2e2m . Since 2004 he has been giving the Performing Experiment Series with the ensemble COmeT .

Kokaji published the Japanese translation of Berlioz / Strauss ' instrumentation studies and wrote a composition textbook himself. As a composer he received a. a. first prize at the Xenakis Composition Competition and the Bekku Young Composer Award and was honored with an honorable mention at the World Music Days of the International Society for New Music . He is professor of composition at the Tōkyō Geijutsu Daigaku .

Discography

• Koan, still, satori. Sargasso Records

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ハ ノ ン ・ ピ ア ノ 教本 . (No longer available online.) Musenet, April 2006, archived from the original on May 27, 2010 ; Retrieved June 7, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ John Palmer's website ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ 佐治 敬 三 賞 過去 の 受 賞 公演 . Suntory, accessed June 7, 2012 (2009-2012). 
4. ↑ Koan, Still, Satori at Sagasso Records