KOHJIBA, Tomiko

Tomiko Kohjiba was born in Hiroshima and studied as an undergraduate and postgraduate in the Department of Composition at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. She has received commissions for works in many genres including chamber, choral and orchestral music from organisations inside and outside Japan, including an invitation to serve as composer-in-residence at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival in the United States. Since the catastrophic earthquake that struck north-eastern Japan in 2011 she has been composing on the theme of the sea on the basis of commissions from Music from Japan and the Japanese Arrangers Association. Her output includes the Hiroshima Trilogy, consisting of the pieces Hiroshima Requiem, Sept Profils non Érodés and Future from 4,000ºC, and in recent years she has been exploring new sounds based on free combinations of instruments. Her works are published by Zen-On Music, Ongaku no Tomo Sha and Edition Kawai. She is currently guest professor at the Tokyo College of Music and a director of the Japan Society for Contemporary Music and the Japan Federation of Composers. She is also a member of the steering committees of the Piano Teachers’ National Association of Japan and the NHK Tokyo Children’s Chorus.