Ichiro Nodaira
Born in 1953 in Tokyo, Japan, Ichiro Nodaira is a composer and concert pianist who has garnered highest acclaims for his multi-faceted musical activities.
After studying at high school, undergraduate school, and graduate school of Tokyo National University of Fine Art and Music, Mr. Nodaira went to Paris in 1978 where he was the recipient of a scholarship from the French government to study at Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Paris. In the duration of these educational years, he studied composition with Michio Mamiya, Masayuki Nagatomi, Besty Jolas, and Serge Nigg, piano and accompaniment with Sadako Murai, Takako Horie, Yoshie Kora, Henriette Puig-Roget, and Jean Koerner. After graduating school, he has had extensive studies with Gyorgy Ligeti, Brian Ferneyhough, and Franco Donatoni in lecture classes in Darmstadt, Sienna, and Aix-en-Provence respectively. He also acquired knowledge of electro-acoustic and computer music while with Ensemble de l’itineraire and IRCAM.
As a pianist, he was a member of Ensemble de l’itineraire from 1982 to 1990. He has also performed as a soloist with renowned orchestras in and outside of Japan including Philharmonic Orchestra of Radio France, Radio Sinfonieorchester Basel, Ensemble Intercontemporain, London Sinfonietta, Moscow Chamber Ensemble, Ensemble de l’itineraire, 2E2M, New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra, and Gunma Symphony Orchestra. He has been active as a chamber musician, making appearances with such distinguished artists as Michel Debost, Alan Marion, Pierre Thibaut, Gerard Poulet, Rainer Honeck, Wenzel Fuchs, Dietrich Henschel, Pierre-Yves Artaud, Nobuko Imai, and Yumiko Sakuma. Mr. Nodaira has a wide range of repertoire extending from classical to contemporary. He has made appearances in music festivals in Avignon, Angers, Bordeaux, Cerbo, Europaria (Brussels), Rome, MIDEM Classic (Cannes), and in Darmstadt. He has appeared in broadcast programs of NHK, Radio France, RAI, and Spanish National Radio, and BBC. He has given the world-premieres of works such as Philippe Manoury’s Pluton and Passacaglia for Tokyo, and George Benjamin’s Antara. He has also given premieres of many works by Japanese composers such as Michio Mamiya’s Piano Concerto No. 4. Mr. Nodaira has been actively involved in the performance of other contemporary works, giving the Japanese premiere of Gyorgy Ligeti’s Piano Concerto and works of numerous other European composers of the new generation. From 1994 to 2000, he was the first music director of Tokyo Sinfonietta, a chamber orchestra specializing in contemporary works written after the Second World War, and presented approximately 20 world premieres and 100 Japanese premieres. From 1995 to 98, Mr. Nodaira was a member of THE WAYS, a resident ensemble of Sai-no-Kuni Saitama Arts Theater. He has released over 90 CDs from such labels as Nami Records and Music Scape, which repertoire includes works of Toru Takemitsu, complete piano works of Joji Yuasa, and complete piano sonatas of Beethoven.
Mr. Nodaira has composed more than 80 works until today for a wide spectrum of musical formats including orchestral, chamber, solo instruments, opera, voice, traditional Japanese, and electro-acoustic media. Many of these compositions were commissioned to him by such organizations as the French Ministry of Culture(4 works), IRCAM (Music division of Centre Pompidou), Ensemble InterContemporain, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Conservatoire national superieur musique et danse de Paris, and Lyon, Akiyoshidai International Contemporary Music Seminar and Festival, Sai-no-Kuni Saitama Arts Theater, National Theatre of Japan, Tokyo Philharmonic Chorus, and Shizuoka City Cultural Promotion Foundation. His compositions in recent years include Fire Strings, a concerto for electric guitar and 100-piece orchestra premiered by virtuoso rock guitarist Steve Vai in 2002, Piano Concerto premiered by pianist Markus Pawlik and Berkeley Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kent Nagano in 2003, En Plein Air for alto solo premiered by Nobuko Imai at Concertgebouw in Amsterdam in September 2004, Texture du delire IV premiered by Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi in Tokyo in November 2004, Ludwig van sampling!, a 45 minutes-long piece for piano and computer operated on real-time system premiered in Osaka by Mr. Nodaira himself in December 2004, Quartet in Winter composed for Music From Japan Festival in New York in February 2004. In September 2002, the orchestral arrangement of Bach’s Art of Fugue was premiered by Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin in Berliner Festwochen (Berlin Festival Weeks), and was later performed by such orchestras as Chicago Symphony and New York Philharmonic. In 2005, his opera La Madrugada was premiered in Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival under the baton of Kent Nagano. Mr. Nodaira’s compositions which were premiered in 2006 include the song cycle Elegies (commissioned by Tsuda Hall), Enigma for cello (commissioned by Musikhalle Hamburg), Triptyque, the 40th work for Japan Philharmonic Series, Suite of Resonances for cello and orchestra (commissioned by Suntory Music Foundation), and Suite of Resonances II (commissioned by Kanagawa Art Foundation and written for Ensemble Wiener Collage). In March, 2007, Mr. Nodaira appeared in Monday Evening Concert Series in Los Angeles as a conductor, composer, and pianist. In August, he was invited as a composer in residence at Mozarteum in Salzburg. He was also engaged in the complete recording of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier using piano, harpsichord, and organ, at Concert Hall Shizuoka AOI, where he is the artistic director.
Mr. Nodaira’s representative works are published through Henry Lemoine (Paris) and Zen-On Music.
He is the recipient of the 13th Kenzo Nakajima Music Award (1995), the 44th Otaka Prize, the 46th Educational Minister Art Prize for Freshmen, “Practical Application Prize” in the 11th Kyoto Music Award (1996), the 35th Suntory Music Award (2004), and the 55th Education Minister’s Art Encouragement Prize (2005).
Mr. Nodaira taught at Tokyo National University of Fine Art and Music from 1990 to 2002. Currently, he has been the artistic director of Concert Hall Shizuoka AOI since 2005.
List of Major Works：
Texture du delire I for 7 instruments (1982)
Texture du delire III for electric instruments and ensemble (1986)
La nuit sera blanche et noire (White and Black in Night) for flute and piano (1988)
Le temps tisse(Time Woven) for brass and percussion (1990)
Quatorze ecarts vers le defi (14 Deviations to the Challenge) for piano and real-time computer (1991)
Neuf ecarts vers le defi (9 Deviations to the Challenge) for piano and real-time computer (1993)
Chamber Concerto no. 1 (1995)
Voyage Interieur (The Internal Journey) Gagaku (Traditional Japanese Music) (1996)
Memoire/Transitore II (Memory/Transition II) for orchestra (1999)
La corde du feu (Fire Strings) for electric guitar and orchestra (2002)
Ludwig van sampling ! for piano and computer (2003)
Quatuor en Hiver (Quartet in Winter) (2004)
Opera "La Madrugada" (2004 - 2005)
