Music Composition

Bradley Kurushima

Prince Shima is a multi-instrumentalist, producer and third generation Japanese-Canadian based in Victoria BC. By the age of 12 he was writing and performing original compositions live. He has fronted several punk, hardcore and indie bands that have toured throughout North America. As early as 14 he started producing experimental music on a cassette 4-track. […]

Eiko Ishiwata

Eiko started professionally composing music for video games and film in 2002. In addition to strengths in composition she is a multi-instrumentalist who has fine-tuned her sound engineering by studying + teaching at the Art Institute of Vancouver, studied classical animation at Sheridan College and was a graduate of The Bishop Strachan School. Eiko received […]

David Kai

David Kai grew up in Toronto as a Sansei attending the Centennial-Japanese United Church where he was highly involved in its music ministry. He is a graduate of the University of Toronto, the Humber College music program where he specialized in arranging and composing, and The Centre for Christian Studies. Commissioned as a diaconal minister […]

Scott Kokichi Kusano

Kokichi began his performing career at the age of 5 as a member of the Toronto Suwa Daiko a cultural association located in Toronto. Subsequently, Kokichi was introduced again to Japanese music during high school after the death of his grandfather and introduction to the Buddhist Temple where he was re-united with Taiko in 1996 […]

Camille Kiku Belair

Camille Kiku Belair is a Toronto based composer, classical guitarist, artist and writer. Interested in working with field recordings, experimenting with mixed media within visual arts is also a large part of their practice. Articles have appeared in the WholeNote Magazine. They are currently pursuing an MFA in Composition and Experimental Sound Practices at California […]

Linz Kenyon

Lindsay ‘Linz’ Kenyon is a writer, composer, actor, and musician. He has released four albums, published poems and stories, acted in film, theatre, and radio, and written many plays. Kenyon grew up on a cattle ranch in British Columbia, and has used his wrangling skills in a few theatre productions. He has written, performed, and […]

Archie Nishihama

Akira ‘Archie’ Nishihama is a musician and composer. He studied music in Osaka, and composed several songs for schools in Japan, as well as the kohka (school song) for the Toronto Japanese Language School. He is also well known for his arrangement of the song Wonderful Canada for the Sansei Choir in Toronto. Nishihama was […]

Ohama

Tona Walt Ohama is a composer and performer of electronic synth music who records music in an isolated underground studio on his family’s potato farm in rural Alberta. He has played synthesizers since 1975, when he bought his first monophonic synthesizer, the A.R.P. Axxe, at the age of fifteen. He has been called ‘Alberta’s Best […]

Sansho Daiko

Formed in 2010, Sansho Daiko is a Vancouver-based taiko group that brings a fresh approach to an ancient art form. Drawing on both traditional and contemporary repertoire, the group creates a visual and aural experience that defies easy categorization and crosses ethnic and cultural boundaries. Like the plant it was named after, Sansho Daiko seeks […]

Chiyoko Szlavnics

Chiyoko Szlavnics has been composing music that combines acoustic instruments and sinewaves since around the year 2004. This combination of sound sources produces music that shimmers with aspects of sound not usually audible in music that is concerned with fast-changing scenarios. Her slow music allows certain details of sound, including certain psychoacoustical phenomena to come […]

Hiroshi Koshiyama

Hiroshi Koshiyama co-founded the Winnipeg-based professional taiko group Fubuki Daiko with his wife, Naomi Guilbert in 1995. Born and raised in San Francisco, he became a Canadian citizen in 2000 after moving to Winnipeg. He received his formative training with Grandmaster Seiichi Tanaka and the San Francisco Taiko Dojo where he also acted as the […]

Naomi Guilbert

Naomi Guilbert is a writer who set aside writing in 1995 to focus on music when she co-founded the Winnipeg based professional taiko group Fubuki Daiko with her husband, Hiroshi Koshiyama. Guilbert received her formative training with Grandmaster Seiichi Tanaka and the San Fransicso Taiko Dojo where she was also a principal instructor. She has […]

Ron Korb

Grammy® Award nominated flutist and composer Ron Korb has released 30 albums in 20 countries and plays a wide variety of indigenous woodwinds from around the world. Ron is on the list of ‘Ten Best Flute Players in the World’ and has won numerous awards. After graduating the University of Toronto he moved to Tokyo […]

Frank Nakashima

Frank Tadashi Nakashima was born in Toronto on July 22, 1951. He is a graduate of York University (Toronto) Bachelor of Fine Arts 1975, specializing in the performance practice of Medieval and Renaissance music. He has performed with The Toronto Consort (1972-1974), the Tafelmusik Chamber Choir (founding member) 1981-1986 and was a consultant for Poculi […]

Boko Suzuki

Boko Suzuki is a music director, composer, and arranger formerly based in Toronto and New York and now in Colorado. He began his music career as a keyboard and piano player in the mid-1980s in Toronto, and by the 1990s was conducting productions of musical theatre classics such as Phantom of the Opera and Miss […]