Aya Yoshida is a Japanese composer born in Kobe. She began composing at 6 under the guidance of Mrs. Yasuko Osato. She graduated from Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo under the tutelage of composition lecturer Kenya Masakado and Prof. Masaki Norikura in 2014. She also studied composition theory and classical piano performance with Prof. Masaki Norikura. She trained in violoncello and classical vocal with lecturer Yoko Hasegawa and lecturer Kei Yonashiro during her time in Japan. Since 2014, she moved to Copenhagen, Denmark and she completed her postgraduate studies in composition with Niels Rosing-Schow and Jeppe Just Christensen at The Royal Danish Academy of Music.
Her works have been performed in Japan and Europe by a diverse range of soloists, ensembles and orchestras, including the performances by Curious Chamber Players in Viitasaari, Finland (2013), by Arditti Quartet (2014) and by Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra (2016) in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Her first opera The Shadow (Skyggen) was premiered November 16, 2017, to celebrate the 150th anniversary for the diplomatic friendship of Japan and Denmark in relation to the event of the Japanese Embassy in Denmark and the Danish Ministry of Culture. The opera was awarded by Danish Arts Foundation for The best 10 music publishes of 2017.
Aya Yoshida has participated in workshops and festivals in Japan and Europe e.g. with Eric Tanguy and Peter Ablinger, where she has worked with a number of singer-songwriters on arrangements, compositions, and recordings, performing alongside them at concerts, events and live performances.
In the fall of 2019, Aya Yoshida won the 1st prize at the Zemlinsky Competition 2019 with her work Double-face. Furthermore, she was selected for the Artist in Residency at the Visby International Centre for Composers in Gotland, Sweden (staying and working in Visby for a week in September 2017) and for the one organized by Austrian Federal Chancellery and Kultur Kontakt Austria (staying and working in Vienna for three months in April to June 2018).
She is often inspired by fashion when she composes her works and her works’ titles are often coming from fashion terms, for example, Polka dots, Tone on Tone Check, and Pointed toe.
