Faculty/Staff Directory
Karen Tanaka
Faculty: Composition
E-Mail:
Phone: 661.253.7816
Karen Tanaka is an exceptionally versatile composer and pianist. She has been invited as a composer in residence at many important festivals, and her music has been widely performed throughout the world by major orchestras and ensembles. She has composed extensively for both instrumental and electronics media. “Her music is delicate and emotive, beautifully crafted, showing a refined ear for both detail and large organic shapes…”, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.
Karen Tanaka was born in Tokyo where she started formal piano and composition lessons as a child. After studying composition with Akira Miyoshi at Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo, she moved to Paris in 1986 with the aid of a French Government Scholarship to study with Tristan Murail and work at IRCAM as an intern. In 1987 she was awarded the Gaudeamus Prize at the International Music Week in Amsterdam for her piano concerto Anamorphose. She studied with Luciano Berio in Florence in 1990-91 with funds from the Nadia Boulanger Foundation and a Japanese Government Scholarship. In 1998 she was appointed as Co-Artistic Director of the Yatsugatake Kogen Music Festival, previously directed by Toru Takemitsu. Her music has been selected for performance for eight times at the ISCM World Music Days Festivals. In 2005 she was awarded the Bekku Prize.
Tanaka's love of nature and concern for the environment has influenced many of her works, including Questions of Nature, Frozen Horizon, Water and Stone, Dreamscape, Silent Ocean, Tales of Trees, and Our Planet Earth.
In recent years, she has had significant commissions and premieres including Crystalline III commissioned by the Canada Council for the Arts for Eve Egoyan, At the grave of Beethoven commissioned by the Arts Council of England for Brodsky Quartet, Holland Park Avenue Study commissioned by the Tate Liverpool Gallery for Ensemble CoMA, Frozen Horizon for BIT20 Ensemble in Norway, Metallic Crystal for IRCAM, Questions of Nature commissioned by Radio France, Techno Etudes for Tomoko Mukaiyama, Guardian Angel for the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Departure commissioned by the BBC for the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kazushi Ono, Lost Sanctuary for the NHK Symphony Orchestra conducted by Tadaaki Otaka, Rose Absolute commissioned by the Michael Vyner Trust for the NHK Symphony Orchestra conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Urban Prayer for Joan Jeanrenaud (cello) and the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kent Nagano. Various dance companies often feature her music. In 2008, internationally renowned choreographer Wayne McGregor made choreography with her music for Nederlands Dans Theater.
Forthcoming commissions include an orchestral work for Radio France and a piano work, Techno Etudes II, for a London based pianist, GéNIA. Her music is published by Chester Music in London (G. Schirmer in the United States).
