ERIKA ITO

Erika Ito is a composer, orchestrator, arranger, pianist, musical director, and graduate of the Film Scoring Major at Berklee College of Music in Boston, USA. She was born in Tokyo, Japan. She has always loved playing and composing music since her childhood. She played percussion in a brass band, and piano in a children’s choir. When Erika was in primary school, she watched the Disney film Beauty and the Beast, and was deeply amazed by the music of composer Alan Menken. She naturally became interested in music for theater and film. Her first taste of publicity was when she had the opportunity to write original music for the play Otsuberu to Zo, written by Kenji Miyazawa. The play was first performed in Tokyo, Japan when Erika was only thirteen years old. After graduating from high school, she decided to be a composer and started learning composition and piano formally. She composed music and songs for the musicals and documentaries including Somewhere Between Earth and Heaven, 20-Sai Festival in Japan. Erika moved to the USA to study film scoring at Berklee College of Music. While she was still in college, she received the Michael Kamen Award for her film scoring works. After the graduation, she moved to New York to pursue her dream. Since then, Erika has been actively working as a composer, orchestrator, pianist, and musical director for various musical theater and film productions in the USA and Asia, and received awards including the Best of the Rest Award at Tropfest Short Film Festival, and New York Innovative Theater Award Nomination. Her recent credits include DiMaggio by Robert Mitchell, HONOR by Pete Mills, A Conscience Will Kill You by Salvatore Lumetta, Caffeine by Hyeyoung Kim, Hell’s Kitchen by Jon Montgomery and Toby Kasavan, Sweeney Todd by Stephen Sondheim. In September 2009, Erika moved to Amsterdam, The Netherlands to obtain the master’s degree in composition at Conservatorium van Amsterdam.