Biography

Mayako Kubo, born in Kobe, began piano lessons in childhood and, after graduating from the piano department of Osaka College of Music, moved to Vienna in 1972 to study. At the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, she studied composition and electronic music alongside piano, but after two years, she began to concentrate solely on composition. Concurrently, she obtained university entrance qualifications and enrolled at the University of Vienna, majoring in musicology and philosophy in parallel with her composition studies. She studied composition under Roman Haubenstock-Ramati. After graduating from the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna in 1980, she moved to Hanover to study under Helmut Lachenmann. She studied in Hanover and Stuttgart for four years. From 1985, she based herself in Berlin and focused her compositional activities primarily in Europe. She resided in Italy for four years from 1990. Since 1995, she has been permanently settled in Berlin. From the 1990s, she concentrated on stage works, developing her own free concepts. From that time, for Kubo, both consonant thirds and the noise of streetcars served as compositional material. Rashomon, premiered in Graz, Austria, in 1996—a commissioned work by Graz Opera and Styriarte, revived in 1998—can be considered one of the pinnacles of her career. "Kubo has certainly mastered the technique of combining materials derived from Japanese literature and European music," Frank Hilberg, Head of Contemporary Music at Westdeutscher Rundfunk. In 2000, her Symphony No. 1 was premiered by the Graz Philharmonic Orchestra. Her Symphony No. 2, Reunion, a commissioned work by Kyoto City, was premiered by the Kyoto Symphony Orchestra as her debut work in her hometown. The Japanese premiere of Rashomon at Nissay Theatre, Tokyo (2002), garnered praise from experts and audiences alike, laying the foundation for her reputation as a composer in Japan. The premiere of Osan, from the Story of Ten-no-Amijima Double Suicide, a commissioned work by the New National Theatre, Tokyo, in 2005, received high acclaim in television, radio, and newspapers, becoming a nationwide topic in Japan. Since 2007, she has been widely active, including collaborations with Ensemble Seitenblicke and serving as artistic director of YACOB – Young Asian Chamber Orchestra Berlin – which she founded in 2008. Her third opera, The Spider's Thread, premiered in 2010—a commissioned work by the Cultural Office of Neukölln, Berlin—achieved success in Berlin as a junior opera involving young people. In 2011, with the cooperation of the Asian Art Museum Berlin, she produced the "Focus" series of contemporary music featuring traditional Asian and European instruments. In recent years, she has undertaken children's projects, co-producing children's operas and music theater with schools in Berlin. As part of this, in 2014, she composed and produced Dream, Japan's first children's opera performed by children, at Kiyoku Elementary School in Kuki City. In 2014, she was invited as a composer-in-residence at the Salzburg and Mondsee Music Festivals. In 2015, she resided at the artist residency in Geras, Austria.

Style

Her works range widely from crossover pieces to traditional symphonies. For example, they incorporate ballet, opera, theater pieces, radio dramas, jazz, and improvisation. In her purely musical works, the use of social and literary themes is prominent. "For Kubo, a closed musical world is inconceivable. To avoid a common listening approach, she eschews traditional timbres. However, in some works, she conversely prefers to use traditional materials, processing them in her own way, or creating her timbral concept as a parody. While Japanese traditional music is not explicitly seen in her works, there must be something in her subconscious that evokes it. This is particularly noticeable in works using string instruments." - Nika Keisinger, Dictionary of Contemporary Composers.

Professional Activities

Japan Foundation Fellow (1999), Rheinsberg Music Academy Residence (2000), Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg Fellow (2002), Yaddo Foundation Fellow (2004-07), Boiesko Foundation Fellow (2006). She lectures on contemporary music and composition at music universities and cultural institutes worldwide, including in Austria, Germany, and the USA. Her works have been featured at major music festivals and commissioned by renowned conductors, performers, and concert halls, including the Vienna Festival, Donaueschingen Festival for New Music, Wien Modern, Biennale Berlin Musikprotokoll, SWR Symphony Orchestra, Kyoto Symphony Orchestra, Klangforum Wien, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Chorus, Graz Opera, Nissay Theatre, and New National Theatre, Tokyo. Conductors include Péter Eötvös, Sylvain Cambreling, Beat Furrer, Stefan Lano, Michiyoshi Inoue, and Hideya Ohkatsu. Performers include Herbert Henck, Jung-Hae Kim, Martin Mitterrutzner, Hagen Quartet, Auryn Quartet, Takeshi Moriya, Gaku Yamada, and Eiko Morikawa. Directors include Lin Hwai-min, Jun Aguni, Marina Hermann, and Kazuko Watanabe. Artists include Hitomi Uchikura and Alexander Kraut. Her works have been broadcast on radio stations such as SR, RBB, BR, HR, ORF, NDR, Israel BC, and NHK. In 2007/2010, special programs on her works were broadcast on MDR (Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk), RBB (Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg), and BR (Bayerischer Rundfunk). In Japan, she has appeared on NHK TV and radio. Over 130 of her scores are published by Neue Musik Verlag, Ariadne Verlag, and Breitkopf & Härtel.

Major Achievements [Excerpt]

• 1978-79: Awarded Scholarship for Talented Students by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education.
• 1979: Prize at the Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition, France.
• 1980: Vienna City Music Promotion Prize for Symphony Arachnoidea.
• 1980-82: Jury member for the Mozarteum Composition Competition.
• 1980: ISCM Israel Prize for the choral work Yogi, premiered.
• 1982: Ballet Suite [commissioned by Vienna Festival], premiered.
• 1982: Promotion Prize from the Alban Berg Foundation for the chamber opera Silence.
• 1984: ISCM Graz Prize for BACH-Variations.
• 1984: Lower Saxony State Composition Promotion Prize [Schreyahn residency].
• 1986: Piano Concerto [commissioned by Donaueschingen Festival], premiered.
• 1986: Founding of the Berlin Society for Contemporary Music [Zeit Musik], served as its president until 1988.
• 1987: Organized and held the symposium "Significance and Influence of 20th Century Piano Works".
• 1987-89: Composition seminar at Tempelhof Music School, Berlin.
• 1989: Berlin Cultural Office Composition Promotion Prize for the music theater work Montal 3B.
• 1990: Chamber Music [commissioned by Inventionen Festival for New Music], premiered.
• 1988-89: Music Director of Wedding Theater, Berlin.
• 1991: Piano Suite Berlin Diary [Berlin Biennale Music Festival], premiered.
• 1992: Chamber Music [commissioned by Saarbrücken 20th Century Music Festival].
• 1992: Dance work Juni Hitoe [commissioned by Osnabrück KlangArt Festival].
• 1992: Radio tape work [jointly commissioned by SFB, HR], broadcast.
• 1994: Organized and held the symposium "The Impact of Music on the Environment" in Rome.
• 1994: Austrian Federal Ministry of Education Composition Promotion Prize for Poetic Works by Ernst Herbeck.
• 1995: Klangforum Wien 10th Anniversary Commissioned Work, Chamber Orchestra Now is the Time.
• 1996: Rashomon, jointly commissioned by Graz Opera and Styriarte, premiered [revived 1996]; Chamber Orchestra Yasuko - From Black Rain, commissioned by Musikprotokoll, revived at Wien Modern.
• 1998-2000: Solo concerts of her works held in various locations including Vienna, Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg, Rheda-Wiedenbrück.
• 1999: Japan Foundation Fellow for four months, Visiting Researcher at Kyoto University of Arts.
• 2000: Premiere of Symphony No. 1 at the Graz Philharmonic 50th Anniversary Concert.
• 2000: Premiere of Symphony No. 2, Reunion, commissioned by Kyoto City.
• 2000: Planned and visited Japan for performances by the Berlin Youth Chamber Ensemble, performing in Tamba no Aki, Kobe, and other locations.
• 2001: Invited Composer at Rheinsberg Music Academy.
• 2001: Stay in England.
• 2002: Fellow at Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg.
• 2002: Premiere of the stage work Fragments of Hyperion, commissioned by Rheinsberg Music Academy.
• 2002: Japanese premiere of the revised Japanese version of the opera Rashomon.
• 2004: Residency at the Composer's Atelier in Paris, supported by the Berlin Cultural Office.
• 2006: Fellow of the Boiesko Foundation.
• 2007: Premiere of Burnt Field, commissioned by the Tokyo Philharmonic Chorus, in Tokyo.
• 2009 January: YACOB Inaugural Concert in Berlin.
• 2010: Premiere of the opera The Spider's Thread, a production supported by the Berlin Cultural Office Education and Culture Fund.
• 2011: Produced the "Focus" contemporary music series, including traditional Asian instruments.
• 2014: Composer-in-Residence at Salzburg, Mondsee.
• 2014: Premiere of the children's opera Dream at Kiyoku Elementary School, Kuki City.
• 2015: Organized and held the symposium "Children's Arts Education ~ A Comparison of Japan and Germany" at the Goethe-Institut Tokyo.

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