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Kaito Nakahori

COMPOSER | ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

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BIOGRAPHY
 

Born in Chiba, Japan in 1989, Kaito Nakahori began composing at the age of 14. Drawing deeply from both Japanese Gagaku music and Western avant-garde music, he has developed a distinctive musical language that focuses on the multilayered resonance contained within a single tone and has advocated the concepts of “Space-Time Music” and “Timeless Music.” He currently resides and works in both New York and Tokyo and serves as the general director of Mito International Music Festival. In 2015, he held a portrait concert at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, where he conducted his own works including Summit of Mt. Fuji. Since then, he has received international recognition through major commissions such as Hotarubi (Goethe-Institut commission, 2017), Samon (Kyoto Art Center commission, 2018), Two Different Paintings (Tokyo Bunka Kaikan commission for the 150th Anniversary of Japan–Hungary Relations, 2019), the Theater Opera Zero (Toyooka Theater Festival commission, 2020), the 3D-audio opera Countless Wells (Fondation Royaumont commission with co-production IRCAM, 2021), Abyss (Takefu International Music Festival commission and dedicated to the Arditti Quartet, 2022), and the Gagaku suite Seisō (Stalight and Frost) (Naoyuki MANABE GAGAKU Ensemble commission, 2023–2025). In 2025, The Star Has No Sound - Clockwork Universe -, a Theater Opera co-produced by the Toyooka Theater Festival, Setouchi Art Triennale, and Mito International Music Festival (script by Oriza Hirata; music by Kaito Nakahori; 3D-audio co-production with YAMAHA Corporation). The production proposed a new form of interdisciplinary total art, while connecting different festivals through a single art project. As artistic director, he also expanded his activities through the festival’s Directors Program, including the site-specific outdoor performance Starlight Passage and Soundscape Garden presented across the entire Kairakuen garden, one of Japan’s Three Great Gardens. Nakahori is a recipient of the Brian M. Israel Prize and First Prize at the Impronta Ensemble Composition Competition. He has given lectures at the Japan Cultural Institute in Rome, the National University of Colombia, Tokyo College of Music, Hiroshima City University, and other institutions, while continuing to pursue interdisciplinary creation across diverse fields. In 2016, his music for Yin-Yu Huang’s film After Spring, the Tamaki Family… was nominated for the Taipei Film Awards and screened at festivals worldwide. In 2017, he released the electronic music album Mythologies on the French label IKKI.


EVENTS
 

Nov 17 2025

Tradition and Innovation 3 (Tokyo Opera City, Japan)

Starlight and FrostⅠⅡ Ⅲ [World Premiere]

(Naoyuki Manabe Gagaku Ensemble)

Nov 8 - 9 2025

Otozono (Chato-en, Kawagoe, Japan)

Nature and Ceremony [Japan Premiere]

(Improvisation and electronics:Kaito Nakahori)

Nov 1 2025

The 7th Akihito Kohama Shakuhachi Recital:The Sound of Sesshū (Sonorium, Tokyo, Japan)

Echoes of Broken Ink [World Premiere]

(Shakuhachi:Akihito Obama)

Oct 12 - 13 2025

Mito International Music Festival (Kairakuen Garden, Mito, Ibaraki, Japan)

"Bubbles and Shadows” [World Premiere]

(Shakuhachi:Akihisa Kominato, Recorder:Tosiya Suzuki)

Sep 12 - Oct 11 2025

Theater Opera Japan Tour

Toyooka Theater Festival (Kinosaki International Arts Center, Hyogo, Japan)

Setouchi Art Trienale (Kagawa Prefectural Arena, Hyogo, Japan)

Mito International Music Festival (Ibaraki Prefectural Culture Center, Mito, Ibaraki, Japan)

Theater Opera "The Star Has No Sound -Clockwork Universe-” [World Premiere]

(Composer/Conductor:Kaito Nakahori, Script/Direction:Oriza Hirata)​​​​​​​


WORKS
 

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The Star Has No Sound - Clockwork Universe -

2025|Theater Opera, YAMAHA AFC+NHK 22.2ch

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Zero

2020|Theater Opera

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Abyss

2022|string quartet

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Bubbles and Shadows

2025|b.recorder, b. shakuhachi

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Seisō (Starlight and Frost)

2023-2025|Gagaku

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Hotarubi

2017|hichiriki, string quartet

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Kaguya

2025|Noh Opera

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Countless Wells

2021|soprano, vc, IRCAM SPAT+36 speakers

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Yaeyama Hirugi

2014, 2019|clarinet, string quartet

 

ALBUM

New record album "Mythologies" part of IIKKI's series was released on Nov 21st on Bandcamp. It is an electronic ambient music work composed by Kaito Nakahori and Masaya Ozaki. Art work is by Erwan Morère. 

Khemia Ensemble's debut album "Voyage" was released on May 14th on Bandcamp. It is a collection of the works that were commissioned and/or performed during the inaugural tour of South America. Nakahori's piece "Zero Ⅰ" is collected to the album.

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