NEW YORK PREMIERE ENGAGMENT!

ZANKEL HALL AT CARNEGIE HALL

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

MISSA JOHNOUCHI, Composer and Pianist

With special guests including Karen Han and The New York Pops String Quartet

Missa Johnouchi is an internationally recognized conductor, composer and musician. She began her career as a composer while still attending Toho College of Music in Tokyo and writing accompaniments for local theater productions. Ms. Johnouchi has gone on to compose and arrange over 4,000 songs for film and television soundtracks in Japan.

Ms. Johnouchi also spent several years in France where she studied orchestration and conducting under famed film and television composer Jean-Claude Petit. While there, she became the first woman and the second Japanese (after Seiji Ozawa) to conduct the Orchestra du Théâtre National de l’Opéra de Paris.

Ms. Johnouchi has released two albums in the United States with the Li-Hua Ensemble. Asian Blossoms (released in 2000) and Road to Oasis (2001) feature traditional Chinese instruments combined with Western orchestration to evoke a truly new and international type of musical composition. Road to Oasis climbed as high as No. 8 on the New Age Voice magazine album sales ranking in 2001.

Among her most recent works, Ms. Johnouchi composed Kuge II Symphony, commissioned by the Osaka Symphony Orchestra, and Yamato-ji Symphony, commissioned by the Nara Prefecture of Japan to commemorate the 1300th anniversary of the founding of the Japanese capital. In February 2004 she conducted the international premiere of Yamato-ji Symphony at the Versailles Festival in France to critical acclaim.

During the fall of 2004 she will perform on the UNESCO Children’s Day celebration in Sao Paolo, Brazil.

Her New York debut will take place in the exciting new Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City at 7:30 PM on Tuesday, March 29, 2005. The concert will be produced by Act Base Co. Ltd. of Japan, Tetsuya Takebe, Director, with local project management by Micocci Productions, LLC.

Tickets at the Carnegie Hall Box Office at 57th St. and 7th Ave
CarnegieCharge: 8 AM to 8 PM, 7 days a week, at 212-247-7800
Online: www.carnegiehall.org