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Kenji Sakai's String Quartet No.1 “Floating Phase” Premiered in Shiga

Oct. 19, 2023

Kenji Sakai's String Quartet No.1 “Floating Phase” will be premiered by violinists Yoshu Kamei and Maiko Matsuoka, violist Takahiro Yasuda, and cellist Seiko Takemoto on October 28 at Figaro Hall in Shiga, Japan. As a resident artist in Shiga, Sakai aims to deepen his relationship with the region and transmit - through music - the charm of the land as he experiences it. The performance of Sakai's String Quartet No. 1 is part of the event, “C3 Current×Creation×Composition vol. 1" which also includes string quartets by John Cage, Maurice Ravel, György Ligeti, and Jörg Widmann. String Quartet No. 1 was commissioned by Biwako Arts Foundation. 

Kenji Sakai was born in Osaka. Having studied at Kyoto City University of Fine Arts and Music, he respectively studied composition, piano, electronics, and analysis at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Paris and later at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Geneve and at IRCAM. He was a member of the French Academy in Madrid from 2012-2013, and a fellow of the French Academy in Rome (Pensionnaire de la Villa Medicis) in 2015-2016. His works have been premiered by many prestigious orchestras, ensembles and soloists. Sakai served as the composer in residence at the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra from 2017-2019.

Notable awards include: the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award (2009), Queen Elisabeth International Grand Prize (2012), Akutagawa Composition Award (2013), and the Rome Prize. He has also been awarded by Commissioner for Cultural Affairs in Japan. He is a lecturer at Kyoto City University of Fine Arts and Music.

Listen to Kenji Sakai's Violin Concerto (2012/2015):

Violin Concerto/Artiom Shishkov, violin/National Orchestra of Belgium/Gilbert Varga, conductor

To learn more about Kenji Sakai, visit zen-on.jp.

Kenji Sakai
String Quartet No. 1 "Floating Phase" (2023)
for string quartet 
10'

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