Biographie EN.

Une histoire empreinte de musique

Ezko Kikoutchi studied organ under Tetsuro Tominaga, Koichiro Hayashi, Takuo Shimura and Yumyo Katsuki, as well as piano, voice, Gregorian chant, harmony and counterpoint at St. Catherine Women’s Junior College in her native Japan. She graduated with a diploma in music education and was later invited to perform at a concert for young organists in Musashino, Tokyo.

Kikoutchi moved to Switzerland in 1997 to study organ at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne under Keï Koito; she graduated with first class honours. As an organist, she trained with Andrzej Bialko in Krakow and Francis Jacob in Strasbourg. She was the official church organist of the Bellevaux – St-Luc parish from 1998 to 2005. She has held the same post with the Ecublens – St-Sulpice parish since 2001.

Kikoutchi also studied composition, music analysis and orchestration under Professor William Blank; she obtained her diploma in music theory from the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne in 2006.

In 2008 Kikoutchi enrolled at Bern University of the Arts where she studied composition under Eric Gaudibert and Xavier Dayer; she graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in 2010. She also studied musical theatre under Françoise Rivalland and attended master classes given by Klaus Huber, Vinko Globokar and William Blank.

In July 2011 Kikoutchi’s first concerto for Paetzold flute was performed by the soloist Céline Herrero and the Bern Symphony Orchestra at the Bern University of the Arts concert given by graduates of the Master of Arts in Specialized Music Performance programme. In 2012, she was awarded project funding from the Federal Office of Culture. That same year, she  obtained a Master of Arts in Composition and Theory from Bern University of the Arts; her Master’s supervisor was Xavier Dayer. After graduating, she benefitted from the professional advice and guidance of composers José María Sánchez-Verdú and Nadir Vassena. 

Kikoutchi is currently working on a number of commissions as well as projects with several groups, including the Ensemble Proton in Bern, the NEC Contemporary Ensemble in Chaux-de-Fonds, the Ensemble Inverspace in Basel, the Usinesonore Festival, the We Spoke New Music Company, the Orchestra della Svizzera italiana (OSI), and the Competition of the Nicati Foundation (‘Concours Nicati’). She was asked to compose a new work for the 2016 Lucerne Festival; it was performed by the Lucerne Alumni Ensemble.

Kikoutchi became a naturalised Swiss citizen in 2012. She currently lives in Western Switzerland.