Chikako Morishita
b. 1981
Chikako Morishita is a Japanese composer and pianist. Her work has been performed by Tokyo Geidai philharmonic, Vanemuine Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Ascolta, CrossingLines, Kupka’s piano, Ensemble Lemniscate, ELISION, ICARUS, OKEANOS ensemble, Haynes/Hübner/Menotti trio, Two New Duo, Carl Rosman, Mark Knoop, Jeffrey Gavett, Samuel Dunskombe, Heather Roche and others throughout the world at venues including Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK), Bendigo International Festival of Exploratory Music (Australia), Mixture Festival (Spain), Zagreb Music Biennale (Croatia), Estonia Composers Festival (Estonia), Asian Composers League: Asian Music Festival (Japan), Techtonics Festival (Israel) and Dian Red Kenchil (Singapore). Active as a pianist, she has regularly played with Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra at major events such as Tokyo Opera City Composium, Suntory Summer Festival and Toru Takemitsu Composition Award, and worked with renowned composers such as Salvatore Sciarrino, Helmut Lachenmann, Joji Yuasa and Dai Fujikura.
Her writings have appeared in the CeReNeM Journals (vol.1 & 2), and her recordings have been released from Enrou Records and HCR. In coming November, Skin, Gelatin, Soot (2013) for solo bass clarinet, written for, premiered by and dedicated to virtuoso Carl Rosman, is going to be released from HCR.
She has been awarded a Dian Red Kenchil International Young Composers Residency (Singapore), HCMF//’s European Composers Professional Development Program (UK and Italy), Nomura Foundation Scholarship (Japan), British Sasakawa Foundation Grant (UK and Japan), Tokyo-Helsinki composer exchange program (Finland and Japan) and Tokyo Wonder Site creator-in-residence (Japan). She has also been invited and gave guest lectures at the Sibelius Academy.
Morishita has been awarded Bachelor and Master of Arts from Tokyo University of Arts (Japan), and Master of Arts by Research with distinction and Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Huddersfield (UK) where she was supervised by Liza Lim and Aaron Cassidy. She has also received guidance from Steven Takasugi.
Biography taken from composer’s website.