Karen Tanaka

Karen Tanaka (born April 7, 1961) is a Japanese composer.
Karen Tanaka was born in Tokyo, Japan where she started piano and composition lessons as a child. After studying composition with Akira Miyoshi and piano with Nobuko Amada at Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo, she moved to Paris in 1986 with the aid of a French Government Scholarship to study with Tristan Murail and work at IRCAM as an intern.[1] In 1987, she was awarded the Gaudeamus International Composers Award at the International Music Week in Amsterdam. She studied with Luciano Berio in Florence in 1990–91 with funds from the Nadia Boulanger Foundation and a Japanese Government Scholarship. In 1998 she was appointed as Co-Artistic Director of the Yatsugatake Kogen Music Festival, previously directed by Toru Takemitsu. In 2005 she was awarded the Bekku Prize.[2]

Tanaka's love of nature and concern for the environment has influenced many of her works, including Questions of Nature, Frozen Horizon, Water and Stone, Dreamscape, Ocean, Tales of Trees, Water Dance, Crystalline series, and Children of Light. Her works have been performed by distinguished ensembles and orchestras worldwide, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. Various dance companies, including the Nederlands Dans Theater, have also featured her music. In 2012, she was selected as a fellow of the Sundance Institute’s Composers Lab for feature film.

She taught composition at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Karen Tanaka currently lives in Los Angeles and teaches composition at California Institute of the Arts.