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BIOGRAPHY

Kenji Oh is a Japanese composer of contemporary classical and media music, based out of San Francisco and Los Angeles. He earned his Master of Music Degree in Composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he studied with David Garner. Oh has achieved various awards and honors for his orchestral, choral, and chamber music. His music illustrates vivid images as though the sound carves out a sculpture or paints a scroll.

 

Oh’s music has been performed at various venues in the US, Japan, and the Netherlands, by Choral Chameleon, gnarwhallaby, International Orange Chorale of SF, What’s Next Ensemble and others. Currently he has a mixed choir piece commissioned by the Esoterics as US national winning composer of POLYPHONOS 2016. Oh also has a piece for piano four hands inspired by Japanese painting, commissioned by ZOFO, a Grammy-nominated, prize-winning Steinway Artist Ensemble. 

 

In addition to concert music, Oh composes music for various kinds of media such as film, theatre, TV, video games, and also for women’s gymnastics floor exercise being a gymnast himself. He started his career as a media composer while studying at Kyoto University of Education, where he received his Bachelors of Liberal Arts Degree in Information Music. The films he scored have been screened in numerous film festivals; “B/W Foxes and the Cave of Light” (Kiyoshi Kurahara, director) in Montreal World Film Festival 2012, “Born With It” (Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour, director) in NBCUniversal Short Film Festival 2015 (received Best Film Award) and others.

 

Current as of January 2016

  • San Francisco Conservatory of Music, M.M. (2012-2014) 

  • Choral Chameleon Institute (June, 2013, 2014)

  • Atlantic Music Festival (July-August, 2012)

  • Los Angeles City College (2010-2012)

Louise Snyder Johnson Fitzgerald Scholarship (2012), Leslie P. Clausen 

Scholarship (2011), Fred J. Aves Scholarship (2011), Alpert A. Scholarship (2010)

  • Kyoto University of Education, Japan, B.L.A. in Information Music (2000-2005)

  • National Winner: POLYPHONOS, competition for choral composition (2016) 

  • Finalist: Volti Choral Art Lab (2015)

  • Semifinalist, C4 Commissioning Competition (2014)

  • Selected composer, Contemporary Japanese and American Music (CJAM) (2014)

  • San Francisco-Shanghai International Chamber Music Composition Award (2014)

  • Winner, Ablaze Records Orchestral Masters (2013)

  • Honorable mention from Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute (2012)

  • Selected composer, Los Angeles Composers Project (2012)

  • 2nd place, Jack Stone Award (2012)

  • 1st place, MACCC Composition Competition (2011)

  • 2nd place, MACCC Composition Competition (2010)

  • Selected composer, Kyoto Filmmakers Lab (2009)

Honors and Awards
Education
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