Innovating Music Podcast
Listen to innovators, change agents, entrepreneurs, creators, and researchers who all are making big leaps, nudging change, creating differently, or watching what is happening from a unique POV. Dr. Gigi Johnson from the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music explores with our guests how tech is transforming how we create, collaborate, and create communities around music in a connected age — in our home towns and in communities across the globe.
This Episode
Technology transforms the way in which we view opportunities and often creates new ones. This week on the Innovating Music Podcast, we rethink learning and education in music with UCLA alumnus Akira Nakano, the President and Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Inception Orchestra. We look through the lens of applying virtual reality technology paired with original composition to the creation of educational programs that engage with local artist communities, and that bring music to underrepresented areas.
Guest: Akira Nakano, President and Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Inception Orchestra
Akira Nakano studied at the Colburn School of Performing Arts in both piano and percussion, soloing with numerous orchestras throughout Southern California as a young performer. He studied with Dr. Heewon Kwon with masterclasses from Jeffrey Kahane, Leon Fleischer, Ilana Vered, John Perry, and Daniel Pollack. He was the winner of the 1st Annual Herbert Zipper Award in Music Composition amongst other piano competitions. Entering UCLA on a full-ride piano performance scholarship, he won the UCLA Concerto Competition and graduated with a B.A. in Film & Television production.
Mr. Nakano spent over twelve years working as a video editor, writer, producer, and live event director at TRW Space & Electronics and went on to have 20+ years of video marketing/communications and film producing experience which will dovetail into the LA Inception Orchestra’s Virtual Reality/360 music education program.
Akira’s play, “A Concerto for Claire”, premiered at Zipper Hall at the Colburn School in 2002. He was the Music Director and on-stage pianist for Lodestone Theatre Ensemble’s “Closer Than Ever” (L.A. Times Critics’ Choice) in 2009 and resumed classical piano full time in 2010.
Akira returned to the Zipper Hall stage in March 2012 with a solo recital accompanied by Michael Sushel. In September 2013, he paired with the Dream Orchestra in a concert of Liszt, Rachmaninov, and several original works. Since then, Akira has appeared as a performer/lecturer as part of the Great Speaker Series at the Beach Club in Santa Monica benefiting the California State Parks Foundation; soloed with the Southeast Symphony; and has played multiple engagements at the Huntington Library President’s house for their donor dinners.
Mentioned Links:
- Facebook: https://www.inceptionorchestra.org/
- Twitter: @LAInceptionOrch
- Asia American Symphony Association: http://aasymphony.org
- Classical Saxophone Project: http://www.classicalsaxproject.org/
- Gensler: nsler.com
- Heart of Los Angeles: heartofla.org
- Young Musicians Foundation: ymf.org
- American Composers Forum: composersforum.org
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