Mari Takano Mari Takano got her first piano lessons from her mother at the age of three and wrote her first composition at five. After completing composition studies under Mutsuo Shishido at the Toho Gakuen College of Music, she went on to study in Germany at the College of Music, Freiburg, under Brian Ferneyhough, and at the College of Music and Performing Arts, Hamburg, under Gyorgy Ligeti. She graduated in 1988. Since the 80's, Mari Takano has been awarded numerous prizes. Encouraged by Gyoergy Ligeti, she overcame Avantgarde influences and developed her own original style. In 2002, BIS released a CD devoted to her works ("Women's Paradise", BIS 1238), which earned international acclamation and has been broadcasted in several countries of Europe, in the USA and Australia. In the same year, she stayed three months as a guest composer at the North-Western University (USA) on a scholarship by the Japanese Education Ministry. Mari Takano has received numerous commissions for new works, for example from the City of Hamburg (1993 and 1995), from the American Embassy in Tokyo (1995), from the Kanagawa Arts Festival (1997) as well as from various performers. She teaches as assistant lecturer at the Toho Junior College of Music and at the Joshibi Highschool of Art and Design. "As I mentioned before, it smells of good music." (Gyoergy Ligeti on "Women's Paradise") "Gripping, however, was Mari Takano's "abstract opera" "Women's Paradise", a synthesizer collage in for fascinating movements..." (Hamburger Abendblatt, June 20th 1991) "The "Blumen-Arie" with its hints of Renaissance-music and its quiet mood proved to be a superb composition" (Kakinuma Toshiko in "on-stage weekly",December 1997) "I have waited for this record! Far from any worn-out academism and avantgarde, this music, in all its hidden severity, succeeds triumphantly in creating a true feminine world" (Takaku Satoru in "Record-Geijutsu", 2003) "Mari Takano has immediately created a conception of her music that is as spectacular as it is original...(Having finished the CD...) one leaves this energetic lady with all one's senses..." (Jean Vermeil in "Repertoire", 2003) "Women's Paradise stands out in its daring use of patterns and voices. It successfully blends synthetic and natural sounds, creating a sound world which is absolutely unique." (Frank Mallet in "Le Monde de la Musique", May 2003) "No Japanese composer until now has succeeded in finding a strategy towards the "exotic" that suffers neither from commitment nor from nonchalance. It took Mari Takano to define this strategy." (Seiji Chouki in "Record-Geijutsu", 2003) "Takano's tremendous versatility and wide range of ideas are a strong part of the appeal. Women's Paradise is highly inspired, iconoclastic music that is pioneering an international sense; Takano follows her will and her whim, and they take her, and us, to places we have never been before. BIS' Mari Takano: Women's Paradise is a product that only could have come from a woman and her sense of intuition, and its consistently high level of innovation puts many of her male contemporaries on the defensive." (Uncle Dave Lewis in "All Media Guide", 2007) No part of this homepage may be used for commercial purposes without permission of the composer. ©2006 Mari Takano