Stacey Fraser, soprano and founding director of the lotusflower new music project has performed on international operatic, concert and theatre stages across the United States, Canada, Asia and Europe. She has appeared as a soloist for the San Diego Opera, the Tony Award winning La Jolla Playhouse, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., Taipei National Concert Hall in Taiwan, ISCM Taiwan, the Musicasa Concert Hall in Tokyo, Japan, the Thailand Composition Festival, the Americké Jaro Festival in Prednasek, Czech Republic, Red Square Gallery in Hong Kong, the Festival Eduardo Mata in Oaxaca, Mexico, Vancouver Symphony, South Dakota Symphony, La Jolla Symphony, San Bernardino Symphony, Banff Centre, Tanglewood Music Center, Asia Society NYC, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center and the world renowned La MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York City.
Koji Nakano, Resident Composer was born in Japan and educated in Boston, The Hague, and San Diego. Mr. Nakano has been recognized as one of the major voices among Asian composers of his generation. His work strives to merge Western and Eastern musical traditions, and reflects the relationship between beauty, form and imperfection through the formality of music. Mr. Nakano received his Bachelor's Degree in composition with distinction, and Master's Degree in composition with academic honors and distinction, Pi Kappa Lambda, from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where he studied with Lee Hyla and John Harbison. Later, he studied with Dutch composer Louis Andriessen in Amsterdam and at the Royal Conservatory of Hague as the Japanese Government Overseas Study Program Artist. Mr. Nakano received his Ph.D. in composition from the University of California at San Diego, where he studied with Chinary Ung. In addition to being the recipient of The American Artists and Museum Professionals in Asia Fellowship from the Asian Cultural Council, Mr. Nakano is also The first recipient of the Toru Takemitsu Award in Composition from the Japan Society of Boston awarded annually to the most talented young composer in the Boston area. In 2008, he became the first composer to receive the S&R Washington Award Grand Prize from the S&R Foundation, which is awarded annually to the most talented young artist (in the fields of fine arts, music, drama, dance, photography and film), for his/her contributions to U.S.- Japanese relations. The past distinguished grand prize awardees include soprano Maki Mori (2000), pianist Yu Kosuge (2002), violinists Yosuke Kawasaki (2004), Sayaka Shoji (2006), and Tamaki Kawakubo (2007).As a guide to his musical compositions, Dr. Stacey Fraser, Associate Professor of Music at the California State University at San Bernardino, has written a paper entitled, Confluence of Musical Cultures in Time Song II, in which she examined the incorporation of a variety of Japanese vocal and instrumental techniques into western musical languages. There was also an essay version of the paper, which was published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in the UK as part of a book centered on the proceedings of the Music of Japan TodaySymposium. Mr. Nakano is a member of ASCAP and served as a Fellow Council member of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts from 2008-2012. As the co-founder of TheAsian Young Musicians' Connection, he commissions compositions from emerging Asian composers alongside worldwide professional musicians for its regular concert in Asia and North America. Mr. Nakano was a Visiting Professor at Taipei National University of the Arts in Taiwan (2011-2013) and is a full-time faculty member in composition at Burapha University in Thailand.
