Daryl Jamieson was born in 1980 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He has studied at the Tokyo University of the Arts under Jo Kondo, the University of York (UK) under Nicola LeFanu, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (UK) under Diana Burrell and Wilfrid Laurier University (Can) under Glenn Buhr, Linda Catlin Smith and Peter Hatch. He currently makes his home in central Tokyo, where he spends his time composing, researching, and teaching. Major compositions of his include a shakuhachi concerto called locked darkness (鎖されし闇), an orchestral piece called resisting fortune, two large chamber works (crystal grapeshot bouquet and con tu sueño en mi sueño), a solo organ score for Jean Genet’s silent film un chant d’amour, a string quartet (warm stones), and many songs, including pieces for koto and voice (古代女神に扮した私). His music has been performed by Satoko Inoue, Junko Ueda, Naoko Kikuchi, the Quatuor Bozzini, the Orchestre National de Lorraine, the Arnold Schönberg Chamber Orchestra, and the University of York Chamber Orchestra. He is a member of the Hogaku Composers Alliance 2010, a group of classically-trained composers who write for Japanese instruments.

Improvising, at the piano and with his voice, has been an important part of Daryl’s creative life over the past few years. He was a co-founder, along with Joe Browning, Christian Mason and Omar Shahryar, of the University of York’s improvisation collective, which has variously performed at venues as diverse as concert halls, a marquee at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, and before an audience of sheep in a pasture at dawn. Daryl has also devoted much of his time in Japan to learning to play the koto.