Kaori Tanaka

Kaori Tanaka was born in Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka Prefecture. After graduating Kunitachi College of Music, she studied abroad at the City of Basel Music Academy, obtaining the national musician and national soloist qualifications and coming top of the class. She has achieved 1st place at the 78th Japan Music Competition, 2nd place at the 2nd Jacques Lancelot International Clarinet Competition, 1st place at the Basel Orchestra Federation BOG Contest, 2nd place at the 3rd Turino International Clarinet Competition, 3rd place at the 3rd Carl Nielsen International Clarinet Competition, and she won the Special Jury’s Award and the 2010 Kitakyushu Citizen Culture Honorable Mention Award. As a soloist, she has performed with various orchestras in Japan and abroad, including the Basel Symphony Orchestra, Basel Chamber Orchestra, Odense Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, and Kyushu Symphony Orchestra. She has appeared in the Tokyo Opera City recital series (Bach to Contemporary), the Kitakyushu International Music Festival, and on NHK-FM. As a member of Camerata Bern, she has recorded CDs, performed on Radio Switzerland and given concerts in Switzerland and other surrounding parts of Europe. She was a contracted principal player for the Swedish Chamber Orchestra in 2013-14. She was also a lecturer at the City of Basel Music Academy. She has studied clarinet with Takeda Tadayoshi, Syuhei Isobe, and François Benda. For her chamber music she has studied with Shigeru Ikushima, Felix Renggli, and Sergio Azzolini. After 10 years of her endeavors in Europe, she moved her base of operations back to Japan in the fall of 2014 and is currently active in the fields of solo, chamber, and contemporary music. She lectures at Kunitachi College of Music.