Kanako Abe

Based in The Hague, Netherlands, she has performed works by contemporary composers, including Tōru Takemitsu, Michaël Levinas, Régis Campo and Bushra El-Turk.

Abe studied with renowned musicians, including composition with Masayuki Nagatomi, piano with Jean Körner, instrumentation with Marc-André Dalbavie, and conducting with János Fürst and Péter Eötvös.

[2] After the Tōhoku earthquake in 2011 she was head of the executive committee for the charity concert at the UNESCO headquarter in Paris and conducted the Japon Aide Orchestra, which consisted of many volunteer musicians.

[3][4] In April 2022 she conducted the world premiere of the multi-media opera Woman at Point Zero of the British componer Bushra El-Turk at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, based on the novel of the same name by Egyptian writer and feminist Nawal El Saadawi.

[7] Further, Abe is president of the Association Franco-Japonaise de Musique Contemporaine, a French-Japanese organization for the promotion of contemporary music in France and Japan.