Dr. Yumiko Morita

Yumiko Morita was born in Tokyo, Japan where she received early education as a pianist.  She earned a Bachelor of Music Composition and Graduate Diploma at the prestigious Toho Gakuen School of Music, Tokyo.  She moved to the U.S. in 1995, earned a Master of Music Degree with honor in composition at New England Conservatory, Boston, and a Ph.D. in Music Composition at the University of California, San Diego.  Her former teachers include: Nobuyoshi Iinuma, Malcolm Peyton, John Heiss, Chinary Ung, Roger Reynolds, Chaya Czernowin, and Rand Steiger.

She has composed, performed, and taught at the Boston Symphony's Project STEP, the Peabody Community School, the American Composers Forum, Los Angeles, the University of California, San Diego, and was an assistant professor in Music Composition at Chapman University.

Yumiko Morita has won many international awards including the Round Top Festival (Texas), The Sonus Imaginorem Composition Contest (San Francisco), Piano Duo Competition (Japan), a finalist in the ALEA III International Competition (Boston), PatsyLu Prize of the International Alliance for Woman in Music (New York), and Tom Nee Commission from the La Jolla Symphony (San Diego).  Her works are widely performed in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.