Kaori Nakano
*14 May 1960
Works by Kaori Nakano
Biography
Kaori Nakano is a Japan-based composer, arranger, pianist, jazz pianist and educator.
She has taught popular piano, jazz piano, and adult piano courses at Yamaha Music School for 30 years.
She has taught performance, improvisation, and music theory to beginners, piano teachers, and those wishing to pass their piano teaching qualifications.
From the United States, she has released works such as jazz ensembles in the field of music education.
In 2021 and 2022, her jazz ensemble works were selected, introduced and performed at the Jazz New Music Reading Session of The Midwest Clinic, the largest music education conference in the United States.
In Japan, she has published a large number of musical scores, such as arranging song teaching materials for nursery teachers, kindergartens, and elementary schools, and arranging musical scores for teacher employment exam practical tasks.
She started taking piano lessons at the Yamaha music school in Japan at the age of three, and took private piano lessons during her elementary school days in Bangkok, Thailand.
Since she was a university student, she had experience in performance activities, so she started teaching piano and electronic organ performance and arranging as a lecturer for musician training courses such as wedding halls.
Interested in Eastern philosophy, she majored in Indian Buddhism at the 370-year-old Ryukoku University in Kyoto, where she earned a master's degree and later doctoral credits.
Her research theme was the Vijñapti-mātra (tā) of the Yugagyo-only school, one of the two major philosophical currents of Mahayana Buddhism.
Music is a means of expression, and she thought it was important to find the content itself to express. Instead of majoring in music, at her university she wanted to study Eastern thought systematically, partly because she is Japanese and partly because she spent her childhood in Asia.
In addition, she has cleared DTM and Midi certification exams, and has produced music for gymnastics floor exercise, Tai Chi, puppet theater, etc., which have been sold as DVDs and broadcast.
While teaching as a Yamaha instructor, she felt a strong need to study jazz by having a jazz class. She then began studying jazz piano again and arranging jazz ensembles, which led her to seriously compose music.
She learned classical piano from Mrs. Takako Kanomi.
She learned jazz piano from Mr. Zensho Otsuka, and she learned jazz composition and arrangement from Mr. Katsuhiko Tanaka.
About the music
The source of her compositional expression is derived from the themes that she has constructed in Eastern philosophy.
As a way of expressing her composition, the beauty of tonal that people remember in classical music, the sound of jazz, improvisation, jazz techniques such as Coltrane change, and odd time signatures by DAW cutting and pasting are considered to have influenced her work.
Below is a review of her work in a composition competition.
“The colours created by the harmonies are quite unique, with very lyric melodies and interesting variations. The middle section has a Spanish-minimalistic feel that contrasts well with the main theme. A greatly achieved work overall”.
~ a quote from the annotation of Rodrigo Landa-Romero International Composition Competition 2022
SECOND PRIZE : Kaori Nakano - A Sunflower Under a Blue
< A list of the performances of her works >
・In the case of her and him
( “Black House Sax Quartet Competition” ) (10/19/2013) by H2 Quartet
(12/15/2021)By The Mountain Ridge High School Saxphone Quartet
・Lullaby of Ituki (Arr.) for Clarinet &Double Bass
( 2014/07/16) by Satoshi Okamoto & Pascual Martinez Forteza
・Movement #001for Sax Quartet (2015/01/29) by New Thread Quartet
・Fu-Jin for Reed Quintet (12/17/2017) by Borealis Reed Quintet (12/17/2017)
・"Shi-no-no-me " for Hichiriki (2022/01/16) by Thomas Piercy
・Improvisation For Flute Solo（CD : TWO MINUTES for solo flute ）
(11/15/2019)by Iwona Glinka
・Flexing (6/28/2010) by Tanaka Class Big Band
(12/17/2021: Jazz New Music Reading Session/The Midwest Clinic 2021)
by U.S. Army Band
・His faint whiff of the midnight (7//2014) by Tanaka Class Big Band
(12/17/2021:The Midwest Clinic 2021) by U.S. Army Band
・A Sunflower Under The Blue Sky (solo Piano)（8/20/2022）
(Second Prize of Rodrigo Landa-Romero International Composition Competition 2022)
By Rodrigo Landa-Romero
・It’s a Piece of Cake! (11/12/2014) by Tanaka Class Big Band
(12/2022:Jazz New Music Reading Session/The Midwest Clinic 2022)
＜Award-winning composition＞
・”In the case of her and him” (Sax Quartet)
( “Black House Sax Quartet Competition” performed by H2 Quartet)
・”Flexing” (Jazz Ensemble)
(semi-finalist of International Song Writing Competition 2011
performed by Tanaka Class Big Band)
・”It’s a Piece of Cake! “(Jazz Ensemble)
(semi-finalist of International Song Writing Competition 2021
performed by Tanaka Class Big Band)
・”A Sunflower Under The Blue Sky” (solo Piano)
(Second Prize of Rodrigo Landa-Romero International Composition Competition 2022
performed by Rodrigo Landa-Romero)
＜Works recorded on CD＞
・"Improvisation for Flute" performed and recorded by Dr. Iwona Glinka and included on Glinka's album "TWO MUTINIES for solo flute" in 2019.
Winning the Global Music Awards -outstanding achievement -Silver medal with this album
