MUSE • Musicians United for Social Equity

Biography

Noriko Sunamoto is a music director, conductor, composer, arranger, orchestrator and pianist from Japan. While her foundation is in Classical music, she draws inspiration from Rock, Pop, Latin, Jazz, Gospel, and R&B. She received a B.A. at Kunitachi College of Music and an M.Ed. at Tokyo Gakugei University. Upon graduation, she received the Takeoka Prize, and has won multiple electric organ and composition competitions including the Finalist Award at the Yamaha International Electone Concours 1997 Finals. She studied Jazz at Berklee College of Music, Orchestration at Mannes College The New School for Music, Film Scoring at New York University’s Steinhardt School and Musical Theatre Writing at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Performed with Tokyo Broadway (Shiki Theatre Company) production of Mamma Mia!, The Phantom of the Opera, Wicked, Takarazuka Revue, and numerous productions at Tokyo Disney. Recent theatre projects include for Standby Conductor/Keyboardist for Radio City Christmas Spectacular 2021, Associate Music Director/Conductor for Broadway National Tour Irving Berlin’s White Christmas 2019 and conducting the original score for Jason Howland’s original musical Ikiru, a new musical based on the Kurosawa film, that premiered in Tokyo, Oct 2018. She made her Broadway debut with for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf directed/choreographed by Camille A. Brown and she is currently serving as Associate Music Director/Conductor.

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Other credits include BROADWAY: Funny Girl (Rehearsal Pianist, Keyboard Sub), Almost Famous (Keyboard Sub), for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf (Associate Conductor), Paradise Square (Keyboard Sub), Funny Girl (Rehearsal Pianist, Keyboard Sub), The Griswolds’ Broadway Vacation, The Musical​ – in the works (Rehearsal Pianist); U.S. NOTABLE: Radio City Christmas Spectacular 2022 (Keyboard Sub), Radio City Christmas Spectacular 2021 (Keyboard, Standby Conductor), Pixar in Concert with Modesto Symphony Orchestra (Principal Keyboardist) , Debbie Allen’s Playlist with Oakland Symphony under Rickey Minor (Principal Pianist) and Classical Series – The Fountains of Rome with Oakland Symphony (Section Keyboardist – Celeste/Organ); U.S. Broadway National Tour: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella 2017-2018, and Irving Berlin’s White Christmas 2019; OFF-BROADWAY: Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish (Rehearsal Pianist, Keyboard Sub), The Jackie Mason Musical (Music Director, Orchestrator); U.S. REGIONAL: Annie, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, A Bronx Tale, A Chorus Line, Frank Wildhorn’s new musical The Count Of Monte Cristo, Fiddler on the Roof, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Disney’s Little Mermaid, Mamma Mia!, Matilda, Rent, Sister Act, School of Rock, Sunset Boulevard, West Side Story and Irving Berlin’s White Christmas; OTHER NEW YORK THEATRE: Single Room Occupancy (New York International Fringe Festival 2015,) Waiting for Johnny Depp (Rave Theater Festival 2019) and The Queering the Canon Concert Series: Sondheim (Ring of Keys;) INTERNATIONAL: West Side Story IHI StageAround Tokyo, Marguerite, Woman in White, Fame The Musical, and Pacific Overtures.

As a musical theatre composer OMOTENASHI Journey was performed at Japan Day @ Central Park in 2015 and 2016, ‘Kajiki’s Artist Show 2015 at Carnegie Hall in 2015, and at New York’s Got Talent at Off-Broadway The Elektra Theater in 2016. And the new collaboration of this musical was performed in Tokyo in 2020 to commemorate the opening ceremony of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The Big Box has been performed at the oldest famous amusement park Asakusa Hanayashiki in Tokyo since 2011. A Midsummer Night’s Dream was displayed at the faerie festival at Megami Lake in Nagano prefecture in 2013. Souseki Natsume Musical (the 150th anniversary of one of the best novelists in modern Japanese history, Souseki Natsume’s birth) was performed in Tokyo in 2017. The Journey of the True Colors was performed at Tokyo Rainbow Pride 2018. As a CM composer she composed for Nunc, Dole Japan Ltd. and Barco. She produced her composition projects, ONE WORLD and ONE WORLD Christmas 2020 during the pandemic in 2020. Her latest composition for wind orchestra, Bloom With Grace that premiered in Tokyo was performed by Kunimoto Girls’ Wind Orchestra in 2021. Her composition for MIDNIGHT JELLYFISH was broadcast on Tokyo MX1 in 2021-2022.

As a music teacher she worked for public and private junior high schools, high schools, technical schools and people with disabilities for more than 20 years in Tokyo. As a teaching artist in 2019 she began working for the NYU Tisch and the Harlem School of the Arts. As a ballet pianist she plays at renowned ballet schools such as Gibney Dance Center. She serves as Music Director/Cantor/Organist of St. Martin of Tours Roman Catholic Church in Bronx. 

AFFILIATIONS: the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) Local 802, MAESTRA, MUSE (MUSICIANS UNITED FOR SOCIAL EQUITY)