Keiko Takashima

Keiko Takashima

Keiko Takashima was born in Takamatsu, Kagawa in 1962, and grew up mainly in Hiroshima. She began taking piano lessons at the age of four and enjoyed chorus as a club activity in junior and senior high school. She started learning harmony and composition theory while she was in high school, and enrolled in the composition department at Tokyo University of the Arts of Music in 1982. After graduation, in the wake of providing new arrangements of YUYAKE-KOYAKE (Sunset) and WARABE-UTA (nursery rhymes) as encore pieces for the Paris Trombone Quartet for their first tour to Japan, Ms. Takashima has written many works including trombones in them. Her repertoire for trombone quartet are PASSEPIED, MEMORIES, SQUARE DANCE, THREE ANCIENT CAPITALS, CROSSING PATHS, SONG OF HOMETOWN, SONG OF FOUR SEASONS, DOGWOOD PRAYER and BEYOND THE HILL OF SAND. She also wrote for solo trombone and piano: FANTASY ON ITSUKI LULLABY, which is included in Mr. Michel Becquet's solo album, BREEZE IN THE HEARTS, BLOOM IN THE WORLD, IN THE NIGHT OF SILENCE, and HEAR THE SPRING CALLING. Her choral works are TOKI-SOBA (for mixed chorus) based on Japanese comic storytelling, LOVE IN KYOTO (suite for female chorus, lyrics by Madoka Mayuzumi), FLOWER TIDING (lyrics by Urara Takahashi). Composition for piano PIANO RECITAL STORY is also on sale at PITINA Musset (music delivery service on the Internet). Ms. Takashima also wrote the fanfares for the opening and closing ceremonies at The National Sports Festival, held in Hiroshima in 1998. She is a regular member of the Piano Teachers' National Association of Japan.