AKARI KOMURA

AKARI KOMURA is a Japanese composer-vocalist. She grew up in Tokyo until she was twelve, then moved abroad due to her parent’s work to spend her teenage-hood in Indonesia. This transition impacted her to develop a deeper connection to music and to communicate with others regardless of the language barrier. From an early age, Akari has been involved in performing arts through playing the piano, singing, and dancing modern ballet. Her interest in nature-based contemplative practices is central to her artistic belief where the sonic expressions are imagined to emerge as an embodiment of natural elements. Under the influence of Pauline Oliveros, Yoko Ono, and Hildegard Westerkamp, Akari explores to curate a ritualistic performance that invites both musicians and audience for a meditative and healing experience of mind and body.

Akari’s breadth of work spans chamber ensemble, multimedia/electronics, vocal music, and interdisciplinary collaborative works involving dancers, visual artists, and architects. Her works have been presented at the Atlantic Music Festival, Composers Conference, Montreal Contemporary Music Lab, Nief-Norf, Penn State New Music Festival, and soundSCAPE. She has also been an artist-in-resident for the Socially Distant Art program and Kinds of Kings Bouman Fellow 2020-21.

She holds a M.M. in Composition from the University of Michigan (recipient of the EXCEL Enterprise Fund and Sonic Scenographies Research Grant) and a B.A. in Vocal Arts from the University of California, Irvine. Her major teachers include Evan Chambers, Roshanne Etezady, Stephen Rush, and Frances Bennett.