Tokyo Embassy Choir is Japan's leading ensemble of Japanese and expatriate choristers. It has a broad repertoire and a reputation that stands with some of the world's finest. From Bach to Broadway, its performances are in demand and the choir is proud to offer many of its concerts with free admission –- it asks instead for donations to charity.
Some of the choir's senior members perform as Tokyo Chamber Singers, a select chorus of supreme skill.
Music director Dr. Steven Morgan is a respected authority on sacred and secular music. He has led Tokyo Embassy Choir for nearly two decades, bringing authenticity, skill and panache to Japan's performing arts scene.
Artistic Director
Steven Morgan's musical career spans five decades and includes conducting choral and instrumental ensembles in Illinois, Minnesota, British Columbia, and Japan. Since coming to Tokyo in 1995, he has taught English and music classes at numerous universities in the greater Tokyo area. Having retired from full-time teaching in 2020, Dr. Morgan is now an Adjunct Lecturer in English at the Faculty of International Social Sciences of Gaukushuin University.
From January 2023, Dr. Morgan resumes the role of Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Tokyo Embassy Choir, a post he previously held from 1998-2020. He also has served as conductor of the Chiba International Singers (2010-present) and as founding conductor of the Tokyo International Children's Choir (2012-2014). His other musical activities in Japan have included serving as Director of Music at St. Alban's Anglican Church (2001-2010), as Visiting Lecturer in Sacred Music at Tohoku Gakuin University in Sendai (2007-2008), and as Visiting Conductor of the Aoyama Gakuin University Chapel Choir (2016-2017). Dr. Morgan is a founding member of the Rikkyo Institute of Church Music and taught at the Rikkyo University Graduate School of Christian Studies from 2009-2014.
Dr. Morgan is also an avid composer of choral and instrumental music. His major works include Magnificat (2007), Sounds of the Winter (2007), Mass of the Transfiguration (2008), and In pace: A Requiem of Peace (Tokyo, 2011; Denver, 2012). His work Seven Last Words (2015) for chorus, soloists, and chamber orchestra, to a text by the late U.S. Poet Laureate Mark Strand, premiered in Denver, Colorado in 2015. In October of the same year, his Concertino for Clarinet and Strings premiered at the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music.
A genial, spirited, and encyclopedic musicologist, Dr. Morgan is held in great affection by the choir's members. They find his rehearsals to be exercise, education, and entertainment in equal measure.
Assistant Director
Kimiko Tsurusaki graduated from Musashino Academy of Music in Tokyo with a Bachelor of Music degree in piano. She studied piano under Reiko Sakai, Ayako Takahashi and Daizo Komagamine and started her career as accompanist with chamber ensembles and vocal soloists. She has also studied choral conducting with Professor Daishiro Takusari. While supporting Steven with her focus on female section of TEC, she is leading a number of local choirs including Kawaguchi City choir, Choir of Brunnen&Oasis as a conductor/accompanist.
Accompanist
The choir has the honour to be joined in rehearsal by tireless accompanist Mariko Sano. Born in Tokyo, Mariko started playing the piano at the age of three, later studying under Sayoko Fukami and Asako Tamura.
Mariko took part in the summer course at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien and studied piano and chamber music under Georg Ebert. She graduated from Ferris University with a BA in Instrumental Music (piano major), having studied under Noriko Uno.
Since then, she has been active as an accompanist, joining Tokyo Embassy Choir in 1995. Mariko's sword-sharp ability to follow the conductor's rapid demands is matched by none.