Born in Japan and educated at the Kunitachi College of Music (B.A. - piano), Kazuko Tanosaki received a M.A. in piano under full scholarship from the University of California, San Diego, and completed a DMA in piano performance and literature from the Eastman School of Music. She has studied piano with Kazuko Abe, Cecil Lytle, Jean Charles Francois, Frederick Marvin, and Natalya Antonova. Ms. Tanosaki was a first prize winner in the 1982 La Jolla Young Artist Competition. She has taught as a Lecturer in Music (piano) at Hamilton College since 1985.
Ms. Tanosaki has presented solo recitals throughout Japan, Europe, and the United States, including performances at the 1989 Piano Panorama of Twentieth Century Music in Rotterdam, Holland, on French National TV, with I Musici de Montreal, at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France, and the Civic Center in San Diego, California, and as a concerto soloist with the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, and Hamilton College Orchestra on their tour of Romania and Bulgaria.
As a recitalist of new music, E. Michael Richards has premiered over 125 works that have utilized the clarinet at performances throughout the US, Japan, Australia, and Western Europe, including concerts at the Cal Arts Festival of Contemporary Music, the 1989 NEWCOMP International Festival (Boston), the 1982 International Stravinsky Symposium (San Diego), and the 1982 and 1996 International Clarinet Association conferences (Washington; Paris). He has performed the Clarinet Concerto of John Corigliano with the Syracuse Symphony under Kazuyoshi Akiyama, and in concerts of chamber music with the Cassatt and Ying Quartets.
Trained as a clarinetist at the New England Conservatory (B.Mus.) and Yale School of Music (M.Mus.), Richards earned a Ph.D. at the University of California, San Diego. He has been invited to lecture on new clarinet techniques at the 1987 ASUC national conference at Northwestern University, the 1995 International Clarinet Association conference at Arizona State University, the Northeast Society of Composers conference (1996) at Wellesley College, the 1997 national conference of the Society of Composers in Miami, the Piacenza Conservatory in Milan, Italy, and presented lecture/recitals with Kazuko Tanosaki at the 1987 CMS/AMS national conference in New Orleans and 1988 symposium of the International Musicological Society in Melbourne, Australia on new Japanese music.
Richards received a 1990 U.S./Japan Creative Artist Fellowship (sponsored by the NEA, US-Japan Friendship Commission, and Japanese Government Cultural Agency) as a solo recitalist for a six-month residency in Japan, a NEH Summer Fellowship to study traditional Japanese music, and a residency grant (Cassis, France) from the Camargo Foundation to complete a book - The Clarinet of the Twenty-First Century. He has also been recorded (CD) on the NEUMA, Mode, and Sony DADC Austria labels.
E. Michael Richards is currently an Associate Professor of Music at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
The Tanosaki-Richards Duo, active since 1982, has performed at Symphony Space (NY), the 1989 International Electronic Music Plus Festival (Oberlin, OH), the Tokyo American Center, the 1990 and 1993 Kobe International Festivals of Modern Music (Japan), the 1992 Music Forum Series at Shobi Conservatory (Tokyo), the 1993 Meet the Composer Series at the Center for Computer Music and Music Technology of the Kunitachi College of Music (Tokyo), the 1995 Asian Composers Forum (Sendai, Japan), and at 20 colleges and universities throughout the US and Japan. They recently performed Masataka Matsuo's Double Concerto (Hirai V) with the Shinsei Japan Philharmonic under Kazumasa Watanabe, and have recorded the work with the Hamilton College Orchestra (composer conducting) for an Opus One CD. They have released (January 1997) a CD of new Japanese music for clarinet and piano through Nine Winds Records.
The Tanosaki-Richards Duo has also performed recitals at the Piacenza Conservatory in Milan (2002), Lincoln Center (NYC), the American Academy in Rome (Italy), the 1996 International Clarinet Association conference in Paris (France), at FUNMusic 1996 in Urbana, Illinois, and have served as visiting artists in residence at the University of Massachusetts (Oct. 1996), San Jose State University (March 1995), CNMAT at the University of California, Berkeley (March 1995), and at the Hartt School of Music (November 1994). They have organized three international symposia on new Japanese Music - Music of Japan Today: Tradition and Innovation, and one on Asian music - Asian Music in America: A Confluence of Two Worlds. They will co-direct Music of Japan Today 2003, from April 4-6 at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
