Akira Kosemura & Lawrence English

Lawrence English (he/him) is an artist, composer and curator based in Australia. Working across an array of aesthetic investigations, English’s work explores the politics of perception and prompts questions of field, agency and memory. English utilizes a variety of approaches including visceral live performance and site-specific installation to create work that invites audiences to consider their relationship to listening, place and embodiment. Over the past decade he has worked with sound as a medium for embodied experience and is determined to share his interests in the transformative and sensorial transgressive possibilities of sound. He is a Sidney Myer Creative fellow, was awarded an outstanding doctoral thesis award in conjunction with his PhD in 2017 and has been supported by the Mike Kelley Foundation for his public artwork project, Seirá, in Los Angeles, CA. In 2022, he has been appointed the Annual Honoree by the Institute Of Modern Art.

Akira Kosemura (he/him) is a composer and pianist hailing from Tokyo, Japan. He is a prolific artist, constantly releasing solo albums and composing music for films, TV dramas, games, stage, and commercial music.

Kosemura founded his own label, Schole Records, early on after his solo album It’s on Everything was released in 2007, while he was still in school. In 2017 and 2018 Kosemura’s music was ranked in Spotify’s “Most Played Japanese Artists/Songs Top 10”, and his works have been highly acclaimed on media around the world, including US music media Pitchfork, Australian newspaper THE AGE, French public broadcast FIP, and Canadian public broadcast Ici Musique.

Kosemura’s major score works include Fragments of The Last Will by Takahisa Zeze; the Cannes 2020 featured film True Mothers (Asa Ga Kuru) directed by Naomi Kawase; Hollywood-produced drama series, Love Is__; the Nintendo Switch game Jack Jeanne, produced by Sui Ishida; the TBS drama series Chugakusei Nikki; the contemporary ballet piece MANON; and the Japan Pavilion in Milano EXPO. His music pieces were also featured in the Amazon original movie Jonas Brothers’ CHASING HAPPINESS; the Venice Film Festival Golden Lion awarded director Audrey Diwan’s debut film Mais vous etes fous (Losing It); and the Toho movie Omoi, Omoware, Furi, Furare.

In recent years, he has worked on projects in different media such as SK-II STUDIO’s documentary The Center Lane (featuring Rikako Ikee), directed by Hirokazu Koreeda; the runway music for a collection from apparel brand TAKAHIROMIYASHITA The Soloist.; as well as music for LA MER BLUE HEART, LAND ROVER, and L’OCCITANE. Kosemura has also co-produced a song with American musician, Devendra Banhart.

In addition to his versatility and diverse portfolio, Kosemura has been working on a world scale. In 2022 he signed a contract with prestigious Decca Records, and the EP Pause (almost equal to) Play was released worldwide. Kosemura’s music was also sampled in John Legend’s song “The Other Ones feat. Rhapsody” included in his new album Legend Act I & II. Kosemura’s first major album SEASONS was released on Decca Records (UMG) on June 30, 2023.