BIOGRAPHY | tatsuruarai

Tatsuru Arai

composer/sound-graphicprogrammer/

creator of Gesamtkunstwerk

1981/Japan

lives and works in Berlin,Germany

Tatsuru Arai is a composer, visual artist, and theorist who pioneeringly redefines the paradigms of musical history through his signature concepts: "Hyper-Serial Music" and "Trans-Ages Music." Arai defines "Hyper-Serial Music" as the most complex form of music within history, presenting it as the ultimate conclusion to the expansion of sound over a 600-year musical lineage. Approaching musicology from a rigorous civilizational perspective, he traces the structural evolution of sound from the Medieval period to the contemporary era, positioning these shifts as a single continuum encompassing civilization, technological theory, and geopolitics. By integrating a sound density from 0% to 100%, he proposes a 21st-century paradigm of musical composition that masterfully harnesses classical and contemporary music, technology, and algorithms.

His seminal visual art project, "Face of Universe", conceptualizes a civilizational view that perceives the planetary system as an ecosystem and a circulation of energy, establishing a visual art form centered around flowers. By condensing the time axis of phenomena occurring within a segment of the ecosystem, the work expresses the fundamental principles and roots of ecosystems, including the energy flow from solar nuclear fusion, entropy, and self-organization. This sensory digital floral artwork functions as a gateway to his complex conceptual framework. By uncovering a seamless continuity between technology and nature, his practice fuses science, music, and cosmology, compelling the viewer to pause and deeply contemplate. He creates comprehensive forms of music and art rooted in a civilizational historical view, technological theory, and geopolitical perspectives.

His music based on these concepts, "Re-solarization," was performed at the Philharmonie de Paris as part of a program by the Ensemble Intercontemporain, which was founded by Pierre Boulez. "Face of Universe" was also performed at the Berliner Philharmonie (Berlin Philharmonic Hall).

Furthermore, his work has been exhibited and performed at major global festivals and institutions, including:EMAP Residency ProgramACC / Asia Culture Center (South Korea)ISEA (International Symposium on Electronic Art)Transmediale (Berlin)Art Dubai (UAE)Art Basel Hong Kong (Hong Kong)Dangdai Art and Idea (Taiwan) Forthcoming Autumn 2026: Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO) (Scotland)

Education & Academic Background
Arai received rigorous elite training in both classical and contemporary composition, as well as electroacoustic programming across Japan and Europe. He earned his Master’s degrees in composition and electroacoustic composition from the Tokyo College of Music in Japan and the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin in Germany. In the field of contemporary music, he studied under including Akira Nishimura, Toshio Hosokawa, Bernhard Lang, and Wolfgang Heiniger.