Hitomi Kaneko

About the Composer

Hitomi Kaneko was born in Tokyo. While studying in the postgraduate school of Toho Gakuen College Music Department, she earned a scholarship from the French government to further her studies in the Faculty of Composition at the Paris Conservatoire. She was awarded first prize in the Franco-Japanese Contemporary Composition Competition in 1988 and first prize in the orchestral composition section of the 59th Japan Music Competition in 1990, together with the E. Nakamichi Prize, and the 9th Muramatsu Prize. She studied composition with Akira Miyoshi and Gérard Grisey. Her works have been performed at the Darmstadt Festival of Contemporary Music, the Festival d’Automne de Paris, at contemporary music festivals in Avignon and Nice, the Bucharest Contemporary Music Week, the Heemstede Contemporary Music Week, Music from Japan and the Takefu International Music Festival, and by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the New Japan Philharmonic and the Tokyo Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. Kaneko was a researcher at IRCAM in Paris in 1994 and has created works in the electronic music studio of NHK. She lived in France in 2011 and 2012 as an artist sponsored for overseas study by the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs. Kaneko served as Guest Research at the Paris-Sorbonne University in 2011-2012 and at the Saint-Denis University in 2018-2020.

Several CDs featuring Hitomi Kaneko's work have been released, including Spectral Matters: Contemporary Japanese Composers, Series 27（Fontec).

Her work is published by Zen-On Music Publishers Co.

Hitomi Kaneko was a professor at the Toho Gakuen College of Music. She is currently an Associate Professor at Tokyo University of the Arts and serves as a Part-Time Professor at Toho Gakuen College of Music.

To learn more about Hitomi Kaneko, visit zen-on.co.jp.

Selected Works

Etoile – Composition by 3D Modeling XIII - à la mémoire d'Akira Nishimura (2023)
for violin solo
10.5'

Natsumi Tamai performs Kaneko's Etoile – Composition by 3D Modeling XIII - à la mémoire d'Akira Nishimura

La Bulle (2001)
for alto saxophone and piano
9.5'
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Nobuya Sugawa and Minako Koyanagi perform Hitomi Kaneko's La Bulle

The Layers of Time V (2012)
for trombone and piano
14.5'
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Purchase the score from Hal Leonard here

Kousei Murata and Toshio Nakagawa perform Hitomi Kaneko's The Layers of Time V

Raise A Song II (2017)
for tenor recorder solo
7'
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Suzuki Toshiya performs Hitomi Kaneko's Raise A Song II

The Layers of Time III for Piano, 2008

AMBIGUÏTÉ pour alto et clarinette, 2014

Vitamin C -Composition by 3D Modeling V for Two Saxophonists, 2019

Carbonic acid -Composition by 3D Modeling XIV for Ondes Martenot and Trombone, 2022