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Jonathan Cole |
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| DAI FUJIKURA Biography Works |
| Dai Fujikura was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1977. Since coming to London at the age of 15, he has studied at Trinity College of Music with Daryl Runswick, the Royal College of Music with Edwin Roxburgh, supported by the PRS, and King’s College London with George Benjamin. Despite his youth, Fujikura has alre  ady gained international recognition by winning a number of prestigious prizes:- 1st Prize in the Serocki International Composers' Competition (1998), the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival Young Composers' Award (1998), 2nd prize in the Toru Takemitsu Award (2003) and the Royal Philharmonic Composition Prize (2004), Internationaler Wiener Composition Prize (the Claudio Abbado composition award) in 2005, as well as being supported by the Society for the Promotion of New Music.
Most recently he was awarded the highly sought-after Paul Hindemith Prize in Germany. Fujikura has received support from a wide variety of eminent musicians including Peter Eötvös, who acted as his mentor during the London Sinfonietta’s innovative Blue Touch Paper scheme. Blue Touch Paper, an 18-month project, resulted in the work “Fifth Station”, premiered in February 2004 by the London Sinfonietta, conducted by Martyn Brabbins. This work was given further performances by Klangforum Wien and the Asko Ensemble. Eötvös has continued to encourage Fujikura, and in October 2005 conducted the world premiere of “Vast Ocean” for trombone, orchestra and live electronics, with the Hilversum Radio Orchestra and Experimentalstudio Heinrich-Strobel-Stiftung, at the prestigious Donaueschingen Music Days festival. Pierre Boulez has also supported Fujikura, and conducted the world premiere of the Lucerne Festival Academy’s commission, “Stream State” for orchestra, at the Lucerne Festival in September 2005. “Stream State” immediately had further performances in Germany, Austria, Italy and Japan during 2006. Fujikura made his BBC Proms debut with “Crushing Twister”, August 2006, a BBC commission for the BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by Charles Hazlewood. In the same year, his music was performed at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s “Music Now” series. Many of the world’s leading contemporary ensembles and orchestras have commissioned and performed Fujikura’s works including Ensemble Modern, ASKO and Nieuw Ensemble, Ensemble Recherche, Klangforum Wien, OKEANOS, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Intercontemporain, I.C.E., BIT20, Vienna Radio Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. 2007 saw commissions from the Ensemble Intercontemporain (“time unlocked”) for the occasion of the ensemble’s 30th anniversary, and an orchestral work with electronics, “swarming essence”, a joint commission between the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and IRCAM. 2008 will see another major commission from the Ensemble Intercontemporain, a piano concerto for the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Martyn Brabbins with soloist Noriko Ogawa, plus several chamber works, including an ensemble work for New York - based I.C.E. and a duo for cello and bassoon to be recorded by Rohan de Saram and Pascal Gallois. |