Toru Takemitsu Composition Award
Results
2025
Judge

Final Concert
Sunday 25 May 2025 | Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall : Takemitsu Memorial
Kanako Abe, conductor / Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra
concert detail
The number of submitted works
137 (33 Nationalities)
WINNERS
- 1st Prize
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Suguru Wagatsuma (Japan)
MATSURU for orchestra Cash Award
833,333 yenNozomu Kaneda (Japan)
The Play for Skin and Fabric for 2 orchestras Cash Award
833,333 yen
- 2nd Prize
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not awarded
- 3rd Prize
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Jiaying Zhou (China)
Tidal Lock for orchestra Cash Award
666,667 yenFrancesco Mariotti (Italy)
Diptych for orchestra Cash Award
666,667 yen

photo © Michiharu Okubo
Comments by Georg Friedrich Haas, judge
Good evening.
Thank you all so much for this wonderful time we had here.
I think first of all we should remember Toru Takemitsu who gives the name to this competition, and I think his power, his clearness, his deep musicality, and his rejection of compromises are something we all should appreciate and try to follow.
We should thank Maestra Kanako Abe and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra who really seriously worked on these compositions. I say thank you to these wonderful four composers for exposing themselves in this concert. Thank you to Mr. Seiji Kito and Jun Sawahashi. Thank you for the invitation. I felt safe and my wife and I could really enjoy the time here.
I was asked to give short comments on all of these four pieces, and I do it in the opposite sequence to the concert.
Francesco Mariotti’s Diptych is a very clear piece, full of contrasts. You could hear it. What fascinated me was intensity of the first movement, and the wonderful motif in the second part, this chord was repeated decrescendo. This came in completely different surroundings. By the way it was amazingly well performed.
Tidal Lock by Jiyaing Zhou is a wonderful sound composition and seems to be music about two objects in the space, billions of kilometres away. In the large distance to the sun, extremely cold and extremely isolated. It is about the relationship of these two objects. But if we listen to this piece, we get conscious that this is not about some planets far away, but it is about the composer herself. It is an expressive piece, full of emotions. With amazingly composed microtones and the vibrations within the brass.
Nozomu Kaneda’s piece, Play for Skin and Fabric is very unusual in the musical material. The material is mostly based on chains of perfect fifths, as in the tuning of a string instrument such as a cello or a violin, and continues this kind of tuning in different registers. With this reused material, he composes a cosmos of sounds within a very fascinating and complex rhythmic structure and with a kaleidoscope of colors.
Suguru Wagatsuma’s piece MATSURU is an extremely powerful piece with complex sounds. Extremely complex and this complexity is contrasted with unisons. But if you listen carefully, you will find when all the string instruments play together the same melody, the reality of sound is as complex as the complex chords have been before - in the same way one saxophone with multiphonics is able to create the same complexity. What is very fascinating in this piece is that the human voice is included. This means he consciously understands that the performers of the orchestra as human beings.
And now I have to tell you something which you could not have heard because you could only see it. This score is handwritten. If you look at it, it reminds me of the scores of György Ligeti in the early 1960s. This also means if you look to the black place here, these are thousands of tiny notes, and each of the players has to realize what he has written with his own hand. There were almost no handwritten scores in all the competition. Most of the handwritten were just bad. But the message of the composer to the performers is, I take care of these pitches of each of them as you have to take care of your notes. Within the competition where so many scores have used copy and paste, it was for me really intense to see the realization of his score.
Let me say something else. A composer who is 100 percent happy after the first performance is a bad composer. A piece which you can just realize from zero in three rehearsals must be poor. The problem is all these four pieces are by very good composers, but all these performances were not really perfect. It cannot be perfect. For example, in the Diptych, the first movement should have more power and there should be more intensity with low frequencies and network between the higher elements. The quarter tones in the Tidal Lock were performed only approximate. At the beginning we could hear what was composed but just as later it should have be done the same way but there was not the time to do it. The dynamic contrasts in the Play for Skin and Fabric should have been much more intense. But the rhythm was done perfectly so we had to pay the price. The voices in MATSURU should be much more intense. The composer demonstrated the orchestra how he wants it. We would need more time to do it. This means theoretically there should be more rehearsals; this is not a favor to the composers. The composers know what they want. And in this case, it was good luck that it was a judge who at least believed he knows what they wanted. But you missed it. New music, contemporary music is not for the composer. This is not a grace society does for us five crazy guys. It is for those humans who perform it and for those who wants to listen to it.
Originally, I had planned to divide this prize into four equal parts, because I chose four composers out of 137. Composers where I felt when I read the scores that they have an individual language and an inner necessity to express.
There are two third prizes. But please, these are not third prizes from four. These are third prizes from 137. The names of these composers are Jiyaing Zhou and Francesco Mariotti.
I want to say I choose you and I believe in you, and you did not disappoint me at any moment.
From now on your names are connected with Toru Takemitsu, and my dream is that these rehearsals and this musical experience could be something like a rocket ship for the rest of your careers as composers.
I said I wanted to divide the prize into four unless something spectacular happened. This spectacular thing were the two compositions of the other two composers.
Mr. Kaneda, what you wrote opens new worlds in compositional techniques. You use very traditional elements and you put these elements in a new context.
Mr. Wagatsuma, your piece has an extreme power. It is an amazing piece and the way how you composed the timing, how you controlled the material, and how you integrated the human voice are exceptional.
When you are the only judge of a competition, it is a very problematic situation. Well, I watched the rehearsals, I tried to support the composers. But I want to share with you the situation: there was a Japanese orchestra, a Japanese conductor, and two Japanese composers. They spoke in Japanese, and when I listened to them I had no idea what they said and no idea what the conductor said to the orchestra. There also was a Chinese and an Italian composer. They spoke English and I know it was very difficult for both sides to understand their accents. But these composers could have no idea what the conductor said to the orchestra. And as a judge, I have to ask myself, is my decision correct? But the basis of my decision is not today’s performance. The basis are the scores. And for example, the reason why I gave the first prize to Nozomu Kaneda is the dynamic range of his composition, which was barely audible. Also your piece, Mr. Wagatsuma, suffered by the school choir sound of the orchestra’s shouting. It is a coincidence that these two very special compositions by chance are composed by Japanese composers. I ask everybody who is able to do it as a favor to repeat all these four compositions, because in all these four compositions there is so much substance in them. We have heard an amazing and beautiful concert and only one performance is too few for each of these pieces.
Congratulations to you all and thank you so much for your wonderful music.
About the prize money, I have decided to divide it by this interval [here Mr. Haas plays a major third interval on the piano], the ratio of 4:5. This means the third prizes are 666,667 yen each, and the first prizes are 833,333 yen each. Thank you all for this wonderful possibility.
Prizewinners
1st Prize
Suguru Wagatsuma (Japan)
MATSURU for orchestra
Born in Yamagata, Japan in 1999. He began first composition studies with Yumiko Kijima and Akiko Nagura in Yamagata. He studied composition with Sunao Isaji, Akira Nishimura and Toshio Hosokawa at the Tokyo College of Music, and obtained a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in composition (artistic music course). His work was selected for the music composition workshop with Matthias Pintscher in the Suntory Hall Summer Festival 2021. He won the grand prize in the composition section of the 23rd International Piano Duo Competition by IPDA (2023), and his prize-winning piece was the subject of the 24th competition's performance section. Since 2024, he has been an assistant composer at the composition workshop in the Takefu International Music Festival, where his work was performed.
- Comment
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Good evening, everybody, my name is Suguru Wagatsuma. I am so honored to be on this stage and experience a day which I will never forget. I am really shaking with emotion right now.
I need to thank Maestro Kanako Abe, Maestro Yano and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra for performing my music with utmost attention and emotion. I need to thank everybody at the Tokyo Opera City Cultural Foundation including Mr Sawahashi, and also Tokyo Hustle Copy and everyone who took care of us. These few days I have been able to spend with Nozomu Kaneda, Jiyaing Zhou, and Francesco Mariotti, I was able to relate with their music and come into contact with their human aspects and it became a really irreplaceable experience for me.
In my life, there are several revelations, words that I follow. These words are: “when people compose, they are creating a world of their own, and there is no material that is not worthy of turning into music. Let’s leave it to the hands of the listeners whether they understand or they do not.” These are the words of one of my favorite composers, Alfred Schnittke. And I must say that I know this quote as being true when I heard Maestro Georg Friedrich Haas’ music. I have always been attracted to the universe of Mr. Haas’ music and also the humanity in his music as well. And of course, during these several days he not only listened to my music but also attended the rehearsals and gave me many words of advice. This is something I will never forget.
Lastly, I would like to mention one thing. I have studied at the Tokyo College of Music for five and a half years under the guidance of Mr. Akira Nishimura. He told me about the nature of music and the spirit of composition and what we aim for. The piece that was performed today, MATSURU, was actually composed three years ago and Mr. Nishimura pointed out that it was the best composition up to that date. Based on those words I decided to rewrite the whole piece again and that is the version you heard today. I hope that my music today has reached Mr. Nishimura up in the heavens. Or perhaps like in my lessons with him, he might be saying “no, no, this is not the music that I want.” He may not be happy, but I would like to dedicate this piece to him. I would like to take this opportunity and experience to continue with my composition in a most humble and sincere way, moving forward.
Thank you so much for today.
1st Prize
Nozomu Kaneda (Japan)
The Play for Skin and Fabric for 2 orchestras
Born in Niigata, Japan in 1992. He graduated from the Composition Course at Kunitachi College of Music, where he completed his master’s and doctoral programs, earning the Arima Prize and First Prize. He received his doctorate for research on Toru Takemitsu. A finalist in the 10th JFC Prize Composition Competition, he won the 1st Matsumura Prize. He studied composition with Motoharu Kawashima, Takashi Fujii, and Kazunori Maruyama; and musicology with Miyuki Shiraishi and Osamu Tomori. He is currently an Assistant Professor at Kunitachi College of Music and a lecturer at Toho Gakuen School of Music.
https://nozomukaneda.studio.site/
- Comment
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Hello everyone, my name is Nozomu Kaneda. Thank you for being here today to share this wonderful experience with me. For me, the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award has a special meaning. The reason I say that is because it is Toru Takemitsu’s music that actually enabled me to pursue the avenue of contemporary music. I was first attracted to his music, began composition, and now I am researching his music as well. My compositional life has been guided by Toru Takemitsu. In order to pay homage to Toru Takemitsu, in my composition which you heard today, I have taken an excerpt from Toru Takemitsu’s The Dorian Horizon at the end of the piece.
As I have written in the programme notes, this piece you have heard today has been inspired by the works and the aesthetics of the designer Issey Miyake. And in order to create this work I have looked over several materials and resources, and I realized that there is a strong bond between the aesthetics of Issey Miyake and Toru Takemitsu. For instance, Issey Miyake says that “being avant-garde is overcoming the age.” As was his design, which I am wearing today, his design is enjoyed by everyone around the world and surpasses any culture or ages. Similarly, the music of Toru Takemitsu surpasses any boundaries or cultures and is enjoyed by people all over the world. I have felt in their works this endless and universal sense of aesthetics. As with Issey Miyake and Toru Takemitsu, I would like to create a universal work which will leave impressions on the people all around the world.
Last but not least, I would like to thank Mr. Haas for selecting me as one of the finalists and as one of the winners, and I would like to thank Maestro Kanako Abe and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Mr. Sawahashi the producer, and all the staff who were involved in the operation of this competition. Also, I need to thank my friends and family who have supported me through this whole experience. Thank you so much.
3rd Prize
Jiaying Zhou (China)
Tidal Lock for orchestra
Born in Shangrao, China. She is a doctoral student in the Department of Composition and Conducting at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, studying with Professor Wang Jianmin, Professor Elmar Lampson and Associate Professor Su Xiao. She has cooperated with the China NCPA Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, Guiyang Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Chinese Orchestra, ASEAN Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, and Singapore Ding Yi Chamber Ensemble.
- Comment
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First, I sincerely thank Mr. Haas for this honor.
These days, I have felt like a magical dream. I have been touched by the works of my fellow composers. For me, composing is true happiness. I am moved by quiet sounds that break the silence — long tones that stay in the air, and the colors of a melody that changes at different speeds. I try to create new sounds using many styles and techniques.
Music is a heaven from the chaos of life, a colorful world, and a time machine.
I want to write music like writing a love letter — with a nervous heart, brave efforts, honest love, and the joy in facing challenges. These things make life meaningful.
So I truly thank the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Kanako Abe, and conductor Yuta Yano. Thanks to them for realizing the sound of my dream.
I also thank the Tokyo Opera City Cultural Foundation, Mr. Jun Sawahashi, and my music copyist.
Last, thank you Mr. Haas and everyone here. It is an honor to stand before you.
3rd Prize
Francesco Mariotti (Italy)
Diptych for orchestra
Born in Carpegna, Italy in 1991. He is currently studying composition under the guidance of Professor Solbiati at the Accademia Santa Cecilia in Rome, and Professor Gardella at the Conservatoire ‘G. Verdi’ in Milan. He successfully obtained a Diploma di Merito under the guidance of Salvatore Sciarrino at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. In 2022 he received first prize at the International Composer Competition ‘New Music Generation’ (Astana, Kazakstan), and a special mention at the ‘2 Agosto competition’ (Bologna) in 2022 and 2024. He was selected as a finalist in the Luciano Berio International composition competition, and his works have been performed extensively, including at the Milano Musica festival, Festival 5 Giornate, Festival Pontino, Accademia Chigiana, as well as abroad in Spain, Bulgaria, Russia, and Kazakstan.
- Comment
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Good evening, everyone.
I am excited and happy to be here to share this experience with all of you. It is truly a blessing to be able to work with such excellent musicians as the members of the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and their wonderful conductor Kanako Abe.
When I received the news that I had been selected by Maestro Haas as one of the four finalists for the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award 2025, I initially had no words to express my joy and amazement. What an honor to see one’s music appreciated and valued in a musical context of the highest level. What a surprise and what a privilege to read Maestro Haas’ words about my piece: an insightful and profound description condensed into a few lines. Thank you, Maestro Haas, for this recognition and for having trust in my music.
Since then, it has been six months full of anticipation for this event, and finally the time has come to be here in Tokyo, this extraordinary city. I thank Jun Sawahashi, and the whole organization, for everything they have done to make this trip possible, taking care of every detail. These were very intense days full of meaningful encounters. I am really happy to have met my other three colleagues and shared a delightful experience with them during these days in Tokyo.
Thank you to Kanako for a sensitive interpretation of my music and thank you to the whole orchestra for performing my piece with the utmost precision and communicative intention.
Thank you all for being here. Arigato gozaimasu.
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