Keiichiro Shibuya

Keiichiro Shibuya (b. 1973) is a Japanese composer, musician, and artist based in Tokyo and Paris. Graduated from the Tokyo University of the Arts’ Department of Composition. His work encompasses cutting-edge electronic music, piano solos, operas, film scores, and sound installations. Through his music compositions and collaboration with artists and scientists, he challenges the boundaries between humans and technology, and life and death. In 2002, he founded the music label ATAK, working across live performance and recorded music.
 

In 2012, Shibuya composed the vocaloid opera The End, starring Hatsune Miku. He composed this opera entirely with computer-generated audio and visuals. The performance, with costumes by Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs, premiered at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and has since toured worldwide. In 2014, he collaborated with Hiroshi Sugimoto for a concert at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. In 2016, with “Parade for The End of The World” he embarked on a modern production of Parade, recreating the collaborations of Satie, Picasso and Cocteau. He performed at Paris Opera Garnier with Jérémie Bélingard (Dance) and Adrien M & Claire B(Video) in 2017.
 

After, he created the new form of android opera, working with an AI-equipped humanoid robot whose programming allows it to sing to and conduct Shibuya’s original music. In 2018, Shibuya premiered his collaboration with the android in an opera titled Scary Beauty, in which the android sings while conducting an orchestra. This opera was staged in Japan, Germany, and the UAE. In 2021, he was commissioned to compose the opera Super Angels, which stars the android accompanied by human opera singers, ballet dancers, and a full orchestra at the New National Theatre, Tokyo. In March 2022, Shibuya composed and performed the android opera MIRROR, for Expo 2020 Dubai, working in collaboration with Buddhist monks and an orchestra. In June 2023, a full 70-minute version of this opera MIRROR premiered at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. In this October, he presented his new dialogue play by two androids “IDEA” by collaborating with Takashi Ikegami, a renown ALIFE researcher at 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa.
 

Shibuya is also an award-winning composer of film scores. In 2020 and 2021, he was recognized at the 75th Mainichi Film Awards and received the 30th Japan Movie Critics Award for the film Midnight Swan. I 2022, he composed a soundtrack for the film xxxHOLiC. Also he composed a soundtrack for the short film KAGUYA BY GUCCI, which was the global campaign of GUCCI.
 

Shibuya was appointed as a visiting professor at Osaka University of Arts and established the “Android and Music Science Laboratory (AMSL)”. The Lab designed by architect Kazuyo Sejima (SANAA). It fosters new ways of creating music with androids and artificial intelligence.
 

Through his works, he continues to explore the boundaries of technology, life, and death.
 

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