Misato Mochizuki composer

Born in 1969 in Tokyo, Misato Mochizuki is amongst those composers who are equally active in Europe, North America and in Japan. After receiving a Masters degree in composition at the National University of Fine Arts and Music in Tokyo, she was awarded first prize for composition at the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Paris in 1995, and then integrated the "Composition and Computer Music" program at IRCAM (1996-1997).

In her very own combination of Occidental tradition and the Asiatic sense of breathing, Misato Mochizuki's style of writing developed exciting rhythms and unusual sounds of great formal and stylistic freedom. Her catalogue of works (published by Breitkopf & Härtel) consists of about 60 works today, including 16 symphonic compositions and 15 pieces for ensemble. Her works, which have been performed at international festivals such as the Salzburg Festival, the Biennale di Venezia, Lincoln Centre Festival, Music days in Donaueschingen, Berlin, Witten, Cologne, Lyon, Zurich, Toronto and so on, have received numerous awards; the audience prize at the Festival Ars Musica in Brussels for Chimera in 2002, the Japanese State Prize for the greatest young artistic talent in 2003, the Otaka Prize for the best symphonic world premiere in Japan in 2005 (for Cloud nine), the Grand Prize of the Tribune internationale des compositeurs in 2008 (for L'heure bleue), and the Heidelberg Women Artists' Prize in 2010. Her most outstanding productions include the orchestral portrait concert at Suntory Hall in Tokyo (2007 and 2019), the cinema concert at the Louvre with the music to the silent film Le fil blanc de la cascade by Kenji Mizoguchi (2007) and the portrait concerts at the Festival d'Automne in Paris, Muziekgebouw aan't IJ in Amsterdam (2010) or at Miller Theatre in New York (Columbia University, 2017).