KOKI NAKANO

Koki Nakano piano

He is a piano virtuoso who is characterised by two things that make him stand out from his colleagues. Firstly, the close interconnection of music with body language and visuality in general. And secondly, the thoughtful, one might even say philosophical overlap of each of his works.

Koki Nakano was born in 1988 in Fukuoka, Japan. After graduating from Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo, he enrolled in the composition department of Tokyo University of the Arts. He has performed in recitals at such prestigious locations as the Louvre and Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, Cadogan Hall in London, and Lincoln Center in New York. He released his first album Lift in 2016 in collaboration with French cellist Vincent Segal on the French label Nø Førmat!.

In 2019, Koki Nakano participated in a research workshop at the Reborn Art Festival in the Ishinomaki Bay area. Accompanied by renowned visual artist Kohei Nawa, celebrated choreographer Damien Jalet, and several dancers, he explored various possibilities of fusion between the human body and the landscape. His second album , Pre-choreographed, was released in April 2020. Koki mixed his classical piano parts with the sounds of electronics, and for the first time in the whole project he significantly developed the relationship between dance and music. A year later, he composed the original music for Damien Jalet’s choreography Brise-lames, which was performed live with a dozen dancers for the season’s opening gala at the Palais Garnier opera house in Paris.

A third album, Oceanic Feeling, was released in 2022 alongside four video works by choreographers and dancers Tess Voelker, Nicolas Huchard, Marion Motin and Mourad Bouayad. The album’s title is borrowed from an expression used by French writer and musician Romain Rolland in a 1927 letter to Sigmund Freud, when he described his feeling of the ocean as “a feeling of eternity, a feeling of oneness with the outside world as a whole”.

Koki Nakano’s most recent album to date, Ululō, was released in October 2024 in collaboration with singer Yael Naim and singers Wayne Snow and Jordy. In his own words, on this album he reflects a state of mind based on typical Japanese education and local culture, for which, while there is a clear distinction between good and evil, there is also a middle ground that does not belong to either extreme. At the opening concert of the Jazz & World Music series, we will witness how Koki Nakano will convey this Eastern philosophy through the keyboard.

When on sale?

You can buy the concert on its own or as part of the “CREATE YOUR OWN” season subscription from 9 June 2025 (8am) when non-renewed subscriptions are released.

The concert can be purchased as a part of the SUBSCRIPTION Jazz and World Music ONLINE from 29 April and at the Ticket Office of Filharmonie Brno since 12 May 2025.

SUBSCRIOPTION RENEWAL is possible immediately when confirmed by email about the reservation in the 70th season.

The discussion with the dramaturge and his guests will take place at 6 pm in the director’s lounge. Reservations are required at besedy@filharmonie-brno.cz by 12 noon on Wednesday of the week of the concert.