Event Detail

Please join the Performance and Composition Areas as they welcome guests and noted scholars from Aichi University in Japan.

• Akira Kobayashi: Glass Swan (Todd Mollenberg)
• Akira Kobayashi: Haru no Uta (Lauren Jones and Mari Kawamura)
• Rica Narimoto: Six Etudes (Michael Matsuno)

Please click on image on the left for full biographies.

Akira Kobayashi graduated from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music and holds the Master’s degree in Arts.   Akira Kobayashi has received numerous prizes in International competitions and awards include: First Prize at the 1st International Carlos Chavez Prize competition for Young Composers, First Prize in Japan Symphony Foundation’s 10th Composition Competition, finalist for the 3rd Music Today Composition Prize, finalist in the 1st Nuove Sincronie International Composition Competition, Arts Prize sponsored by the Jomo Newspaper Publishing Company and Honorary Plaque at the 9th International Gino Contilli Composition Competition. He studied at the Sibelius Academy as a research fellow with a grant from the Japanese government. Currently Akira Kobayashi is Professor of composition at Aichi University of the Arts.

Rica Narimoto was born in Wakayama, Japan, and completed her M.A. and D.M. degrees at Aichi University of the Arts, graduating at the top of her class and receiving the university's prestigious Kuwabara Prize. Her music has been performed in many countries including Japan, Holland, Finland, the United States and Egypt. She received numerous awards including the Irino Prize (2008). Her work combines contemporary compositional techniques with the traditional rhythmic structures of the 17th-century Japanese Itchu-Bushi form in order to create abstract structures of space and time and produce a unique musical signature. In 2011, awarded a grant from the Asian Cultural Council (USA), she resided in New York City. Currently she is Associate Professor at Aichi University of the Arts.

Masayuki Yasuhara is a musicologist with a specialization in Russian music history.  He graduated from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, before studying at Indiana University (musicology, organ and Russian Studies) and Moscow State University (Philology).  In 2001, he spent 6 months as a visiting scholar at the Moscow Conservatory on a special grant from the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Prof. Yasuhara has published book chapters and articles on Shostakovich, Rachmaninoff, Socialist Realism, among others.  He has also given papers at various professional conferences including the 1997 meeting of the International Comparative Literature Association in Leiden, Holland, the 2000 International Shostakovich Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, and the Chapter meetings of the Musicological Society of Japan.