April 13th @ 4 PM CST
Zoom link: https://memphis.zoom.us/j/86481050019?pwd=d3pmUUI5WGlmZkVPcE41eGFQU1FBZz09
Japanese-American composer, conductor, and clarinetist Yoshiaki Onishi received his doctorate in music composition from Columbia University in 2015 and is currently the Postdoctoral Fellow in Music Composition at the University of Missouri, serving as Assistant Conductor for the Mizzou New Music Ensemble. As a composer, he is interested in exploring a wide range of instrumental timbres and finding ways to incorporate them in musical syntaxes and forms that disrupt the sense of expectation. He has worked on commissions that have come from such festivals and organizations as Philharmonie Luxembourg, Takefu International Music Festival, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, and his music has been performed by many ensembles, including Asko|Schönberg Ensemble, Klangforum Wien, Nieuw Ensemble, Distractfold Ensemble, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Quatuor Diotima and JACK Quartet. He is the recipient of the 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship, the 2018 Fromm Commission, and the Gaudeamus Prize 2011, and his works are published by Edition Gravis in Berlin, Germany. As a conductor deeply engaged in promoting the music of today, he was one of the founding members of Ensemble Exophonie Tokyo and its Artistic Director/Conductor/Composer Associate. Other ensembles he has worked with as a conductor include Nieuw Ensemble of Amsterdam, ECCE Ensemble and Wet Ink Ensemble. Increasingly active as a re-emerged clarinetist in the recent years, he has collaborated with composers Carolina Heredia, Oswald Huynh, Bret Bohman, and Andrew Crossley.