Kikuko Kanai


Kikuko Kanai was a Japanese composer and one of the first Japanese women to compose classical music in the Western tradition.

Biography

Kikuko Kawahira was born on the Ryukyu island of Miyako-jima, Okinawa, and studied voice at the Nihon Music School and composition at Tokyo Music School. She studied with teachers including with Taijiro Goh, Kanichi Shimofusa, Hisatada Otaka and Kishio Hirao. Working as a composer, she produced songs and orchestral music using the Ryukyuan pentatonic scale.
In 1954 she studied the dodecaphonic method in Brazil with Hans-Joachim Koellreutter, and incorporated atonal composition into her work. She was awarded the Mainichi Prize for Cultural Publication in 1955, and a prize by the Okinawan government for her opera Okinawa monogatari in 1968. She died in Tokyo.
The BBC describe her as "one of the first Japanese women to compose Western classical music".

Works

Selected works include:
  • Ryūkyū no min’yō 1954
  • Okinawa monogatari opera
  • Miyako-jima engi, 1949
  • Ryūkyū hiwa, 1951
  • Hiren Karafune, 1960
  • Okinawa monogatari, 1997
  • Symphony, no.1, 1938
  • Okinawa buyō kumikyoku : no.1, 1940, no.2, 1946
  • Ryūkyū kyōsōkyoku no.1, 1946
  • Symphony, no.2, 1946
  • Uruma no shi, 1952
  • Festival Overture 'Hishō', 1972
  • Ryūkyū kyōsōkyoku no.2, pianoforte octet, 1950
  • Ryūkyū Ballade, pianoforte, 1951
  • Sonata, violin, pianoforte, 1952
  • Brazil Rhapsody, pianoforte, 1955
  • Hamachidori hensōkyoku, koto, Electone, percussion, 1970
  • Okinawa min'yō niyoru gasshōkyoku-shū, 1953–60
  • Haha to ko no Okinawa no uta, 1965
Her work has been recorded and issued on CD, including: