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Francesca Le Lohé (she/her) is a composer and community musician, active in Japan and the UK.
Theatrical projects and intercultural exchange are integral to Francesca's work. In August 2020, she co-founded the “Sound & Word Network” with writer Charlotte Wührer, to facilitate international collaborations between composers/sound artists and writers. She is currently developing “How Was It For You?”: a new opera project taking Mori Ogai's short novel, "Vita Sexualis"(1909) as a springboard to explore themes of Relationship and Sex Education within Japan and the UK. Francesca is the composer and director behind "THE鍵KEY": an immersive, site-specific opera inspired by Tanizaki's novella of the same name, featuring a mixture of Japanese and western artforms. Described by Opera Magazine as "an ingenious new opera", the 2019 performances were awarded the prestigious “Keizo Saji Prize” by the Suntory Foundation for the Arts, and the UK premiere was an official event of the Japan-UK Season of Culture. |
"She's one to watch" (The Herald)
"wonderfully and meticulously crafted"
(on THE鍵KEY, Schmopera)
"compact, sensitively heard"
(on Blind Man and an Elephant, The Observer)
Francesca's work has featured in festivals such as TAma Music and Arts Festival, Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival, London Festival of Architecture, Sonorities and Noise Floor. Her compositions have been performed by numerous ensembles, including Southbank Sinfonia (alumni), GBSR duo, Trio Atem, "Senju Dajare Community Band", Psappha and Red Note ensemble. She has held artist residencies at Hospitalfield (UK), Elektronmusikstudion (Sweden) and NOVARS (research centre for sound, space and interactive art, UK). Francesca is a LSO Soundhub Associate 2022-2024.
From 2015-2021, Francesca was based in Tokyo after receiving a 2015 Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation Scholarship. Alongside her compositional activities, Francesca studied traditional instruments, including the sho, which she regularly performed on with The Japan Gagaku Society, and worked as a facilitator with the music therapy NPO Kokoro Talk Music. She completed her undergraduate at the University of Manchester and her masters at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, studying with David Fennessy and Alistair MacDonald.
