Ben Nobuto is a British/Japanese composer, pianist and producer from Kent, UK. With a style described as ‘postmodern’ (Nonclassical), ‘utterly contemporary’ (Manchester Collective) and ‘sonically dazzling’ (RPS Awards), his music explores themes of attention and fragmentation, drawing from internet culture and popular idioms in a playful, ironic and surreal manner. Often combining acoustic with electronic sounds, his interest lies in how processes from one can be applied to the other, and the relationship between the ‘human’ and ‘non-human’ in the context of a performance.

Previous commissions include works for Manchester Collective, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Ligeti Quartet, Southbank Sinfonia and BBC Singers. His music has featured on BBC Radio 3 and 6, Times Radio and Resonance FM and has released on NMC Recordings and Nonclassical. He was recently awarded an Ivors Classical Award for his choral work Sol and a Royal Philharmonic Society Award for SERENITY 2.0. As a pianist, he often performs his own work, combining a genre-fluid style of piano-playing with electronics, as in his performance at UK New Artists’ Leicester Takeover Festival in early 2022.

Upcoming projects include works for Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, London Handel Festival and Colin Currie. He is currently working towards a debut album with the support of Sound and Music’s ‘New Voices’ scheme, which is set to release in 2024.

Other projects include the BentoBeats series, an ongoing string of virtual collaborations across social media, blending classical, jazz and electronic idioms with a hyperactive visual style. In late 2020, he was selected winner of Roundhouse Rising Festival’s Stems Challenge, a UK-wide competition for young producers.

Ben graduated from the University of Cambridge in 2019, where he holds a BMus and MPhil Distinction-award degree in Music. He was the recipient of the 2019 Bliss Prize for composition.