Festival! The Best of the 1995 Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival The 1995 Composer In Residence

Sidebar 2: The 1995 Composer In Residence

Tomiko Kohjiba is an increasingly sought-after composer in the United States and Europe, as well as in her native Japan. Born in Hiroshima, she graduated from a high school connected with Hiroshima University. In 1979, she entered the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music and continued studies at its graduate school, earning her doctorate in composition. Before entering the University she had composed an Introduction and Allegro for Orchestra, a quartet for two alto flutes, cello, and harpsichord, and a choral work, Kotobaasobi-Uta, which won the competition at the Kanagawa Festival and was broadcast on Japanese radio in 1977.

In 1979 Ms. Kohjiba composed Requiem Hiroshima, presenting the work the next year to her native city. She later rewrote much of the piece, and in 1985 Leonard Bernstein suggested that the work be programmed by the European Community Orchestra. Requiem earned her recognition throughout the world, and was subsequently included in Boston Symphony Orchestra concerts under the baton of Seiji Ozawa. Ms. Kohjiba has since received numerous commissions, and often utilizes traditional Japanese instruments such as the shakuhachi (a vertical bamboo flute) and sho (a bamboo wind instrument) in her works. She currently is Associate Professor of Music at the Tokyo College of Music.

The world premiere of Ms. Kohjiba's The Transmigration of the Soul at the 1995 Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival was underwritten by a generous gift from Festival Trustee Marvin Sloves in memory of theater impresario Toby Rowland.

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