AKIRA KOSEMURA

MANON (2CD)

Regular price $15.00

Akira Kosemura - MANON (Music for the Contemporary Ballet Theatre)

“MANON” is a dance theater performance, directed and choreographed by Kimiho Hulbert, based on the 18th century French romantic literature masterpiece “Manon Lescaut” (written by Abbé Prévost). Akira Kosemura composed the original score for this production, and this is the two discs soundtrack with more than 80 minutes. This is a love story of Manon, a gil who is as naivete and innocent as the wind, and in the end she will die from the tragic event what she has caused, and Des Grieux, who meets Manon and continues to love her at the mercy of fate. The original scores were composed with a touch of beauty, with fragility, and with some cruelty for this tragic love story, is a response to the couple’s fate in a story. A universal theme ” a joy of life, and a difficulty of living one’s own destiny” exists in the music, which also can be adapted into modern life. In contrast with his previous album “how my heart sings”, a simple and beautiful piano album, which featured more in playing the piano, in this new album consists with varieties in compositions and has different arrangements by featuring many artists; Mika Shirasawa (violin), Haruka Hitomi (cello), Rie Yoshihara (accordion), Izumi Misawa (marimba, percussion), Muneki Takasaka (guitar), Shin Araki (flute), Shaylee (vocal). In addition, it also features some sounds not seen in Akira Kosemura’s previous works, such as electronic sound effects, and noise music, which makes this album a bit different from his previous releases. It is a beautiful piece of work to catch a glimpse of the different side of the composer as a sound artist. Although this is the complete soundtrack for the theater performance “MANON”, including 19 songs, but also the listeners can enjoy the total of eighty minutes of exciting sound experience. * Due to the artist’s intention, this album is released only in CD format. In the whole process, Akira Kosemura created this piece with a thorough aesthetic sense as a suite of sounds.

Akira Kosemura (he/him) is a composer and pianist hailing from Tokyo, Japan. He is a prolific artist, constantly releasing solo albums and composing music for films, TV drama, games, stage, and commercial music.
Akira founded his own label Schole Records early on after his solo album It's on Everything released in 2007 while he was still in school. In 2017 and 2018 Akira's music was ranked in Spotify's "Most Played Japanese Artists/Songs Top 10", and his works have been highly acclaimed on media around the world, including US music media Pitchfork, Australian newspaper THE AGE, French public broadcast FIP, and Canadian public broadcast Ici Musique.
Akira's major score works include Fragments of The Last Will by Takahisa Zeze, the Cannes 2020 featured film True Mothers (Asa Ga Kuru) directed by Naomi Kawase, Hollywood produced drama series Love Is__, the Nintendo Switch game Jack Jeanne produced by Sui Ishida, the TBS drama series Chugakusei Nikki, the contemporary ballet piece MANON, and the Japan Pavilion in Milano EXPO. His music pieces were also featured in the Amazon original movie Jonas Brothers' CHASING HAPPINESS, the Venice Film Festival Golden Lion awarded director Audrey Diwan's debut film Mais vous etes fous (Losing It), and the Toho movie Omoi, Omoware, Furi, Furare.
In recent years, he has worked on projects in different media such as SK-II STUDIO's documentary The Center Lane (featuring Rikako Ikee), directed by Hirokazu Koreeda, the runway music for a collection from apparel brand TAKAHIROMIYASHITA The Soloist., as well as music for LA MER BLUE HEART, LAND ROVER, and L'OCCITANE. Akira has also co-produced a song with American musician Devendra Banhart.
In addition to his versatility and diverse portfolio, Akira has been working on a world scale. In 2022 he signed a contract with prestigious Decca Records, and the EP Pause (almost equal to) Play was released worldwide. Akira's music was also sampled in John Legend's song "The Other Ones feat. Rhapsody" included in his new album Legend Act I & II. And Akira's first major album SEASONS was released on Decca Records (UMG) on June 30, 2023.

“It feels impossible to get tired of, circumscribed and boundless at once.”
by Pitchfork

“Fantastic stuff.”
by Gilles Peterson

“Peaceful, evocative music”
by Fact Magazine