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= Asako Hirobayashi =

Asako Hirobayashi (born 1960) is an Asian-American contemporary composer and harpsichordist.

Biography
Asako Hirobayashi was born in Japan and began composing and playing piano at age 7. She graduated from college in Japan as a composition major. Later, she encountered the harpsichord in Japan, and connected with it quickly as a good fit for her small hands and her desire to play on rare instruments. She moved to the United States in order to study harpsichord performance and composition at the Julliard School in the 1990s. She earned a doctorate degree from Juilliard writing a dissertation on Ornamentation in the harpsichord music of William Byrd. In the early 2000s, she married and moved to Minnesota where she became an active member of the Japan America Society of Minnesota. She continues to perform locally, nationally, and internationally, while also composing and teaching. Her most recognized compositions include an opera, a Concerto for Four Harpsichords and Strings, and solo harpsichord and chamber pieces.

Hirobayashi's interest in historical instruments led her to collaborate with violinist Margaret Humphrey. They officially decided to start the duo “Cerulean Fire” in 2012. Their mission is to provide the highest quality of music as well as increase the general public’s awareness and appreciation of concerts with historical instruments. In 2014 Hirobayashi took over producing a "Music and Flower" show with the group Sogetsu Ikebana Group. This show was had been found started by her friend Eiji Ikeda, a violist of the Minnesota Orchestra.

Performing her own compositions and other great works, Asako makes regular appearances at the Baroque Room in Minneapolis. She has performed in Japan, Carnegie Hall, London, and several global venues. She regularly collaborates with string players and other performers.

Hirobayashi also teaches in her studio at the Saint Paul Conservatory.

Musical Style
Hirobayashi's musical style blends distinct melodic lines and traditional rhythms with structures built from the textures of Ligeti and spectralist composers.

Hirobayashi composes music for solo harpsichord and many combinations of other chamber instruments.

She composed and performed all the works for the CD The Harpsichord in the New Millennium, Albany Music Distribution.

Asako Hirabayashi wrote and composed the opera Yukionna, based on a well known and ancient Japanese folktale. The libretto by Steven Epp of Theatre de la Jeune Lune (and translated by Keiko Kimura and Momoko Tanno) reimagines the tragedy of the Snow Witch Yukionna. The work blends Western opera style with Japanese arias and music.

Honors
Hirobayashi is a regular winner of Minnesota Arts Board grants. She has also won multiple McKnight awards. Her CD The Harpsichord in the New Millenium was selected as one of the five best classical CDs of the year 2010 by Minneapolis Star Tribune and earned the Gold Medal Award from Global Music Awards 2018. She has been artist in residence three times.

Lists
Lists to make her findable: List of female composers by name •	List of composers by name •	List of classical music composers by era •	List of 21st-century classical composers •	List of composers by nationality •	List of piano composers •	List of harpsichordists •	List of Juilliard School people •	List of people from Minnesota •	List of Japanese composers •	List of American composers •	List of Japanese Americans •	List of Japanese women writers •	Chronological list of American classical composers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Association_of_Japan-America_Societies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Americans

Category:Women composers Category:Asian american composers