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. She made her Broadway debut with for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf directed/choreographed by Camille A. Brown as Associate Conductor in 2022.

Current theatre credits include Aladdin (Keyboard Sub/Rehearsal Pianist), Chicago (Piano/Accordion Sub), The Great Gatsby (Keyboard Sub/Rehearsal Pianist), MJ (Keyboard Sub), and Ragtime (Keyboard Sub/Rehearsal Pianist).

Other credits include BROADWAY: for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf (Associate Conductor/Keyboardist), Almost Famous (Keyboard Sub), Beetlejuice (Keyboard Sub), Funny Girl (Keyboard Sub/Rehearsal Pianist), Hell’s Kitchen (Keyboard Sub), Paradise Square (Keyboard Sub), Pirates! The Penzance Musical (Keyboard Sub), The Griswolds’ Broadway Vacation, The Musical – in the works (Rehearsal Pianist); U.S. NOTABLE: Radio City Christmas Spectacular 2021-2025 (Keyboard Chair/Standby Conductor/Keyboard Sub/Rehearsal Pianist),  Star Wars Episode VI: The Return of the Jedi in Concert with Modesto Symphony Orchestra (Principal Keyboardist), 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); TOKYO BROADWAY (SHIKI THEATRE COMPANY): Wicked, The Phantom of The Opera, and Mamma Mia!; U.S. Broadway National Tour: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella 2017-2018 (Associate Music Director), and Irving Berlin’s White Christmas 2019 (Associate Music Director); OFF-BROADWAY: SIA’s musical Saturday Church (Associate Conductor), Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish (Rehearsal Pianist, Keyboard Sub), The Jackie Mason Musical (Music Director, Orchestrator); U.S. REGIONAL: The Nutty Professor (Ogunquit Playhouse), Sunset Boulevard, Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, and A Bronx Tale (The John W. Engeman Theatre), Disney’s Little Mermaid, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Sister Act (The Argyle Theatre), Matilda (Clocktower Players), Mamma Mia! (Capital Repertory Theatre), West Side Story (Ivoryton Playhouse and Cortland Repertory Theatre), A Chorus Line (Ivoryton Playhouse and Cortland Repertory Theatre), Annie, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Frank Wildhorn’s new musical The Count Of Monte Cristo, School of Rock (Tuacahn Center for the Arts); OTHER NEW YORK THEATRE: Rent, and Cabaret – Come Together (Baruch College), Gilgamesh – A Musical Epic (Columbia Stage at Columbia University’s School of the Arts), Single Room Occupancy (New York International Fringe Festival 2015,) The Queering the Canon Concert Series: Sondheim (Ring of Keys), and Waiting for Johnny Depp (Rave Theater Festival 2019); INTERNATIONAL: Jason Howland’s original musical Ikiru – a new musical based on the Kurosawa film, that premiered in Tokyo in 2018 (Conductor), 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 dance accompanist she plays at renowned dance conservatories and ballet schools such as Rockettes Conservatory (dir. Julie Branam), Gibney Dance Center, Steps on Broadway, NYU Tisch, New Studio on Broadway, Harlem School of Arts, Ballet Academy East, Manhattan Youth Ballet, New York Theatre Ballet, and Joffrey Ballet School She plays at Roman Catholic churches as Cantor/Organist in the city. She also works at Molloy/CAP 21 BFA Program, The Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute, The New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts and Marymount Manhattan College.

AFFILIATIONS: Recording Academy Grammy® Voting Member, ASCAP (Writer), the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) Local 802, MAESTRA, MUSE (MUSICIANS UNITED FOR SOCIAL EQUITY)