女声合唱団「歌姫」
Female Choir "Utahime"
In 1992, several young women, who love to sing in chorus, from Ehime prefecture, gathered together to form a female choir.We named it "Utahime" because we want to make it known throughout Japan that it is the choir in Ehime, and because the sound of "E-Hime no Uta-Hime" is euphonious for us.In trying to seek a better vocal technique and musicality, we performed in various choir competitions, held our own concerts and performed in joint concerts.We participated in the national choral competition four times.And we held six concerts of our own, when we invited several prominent musicians as guest conductors; Kenji Otani for the first concert, Ko Matsushita for the second and third, as well as Noboru Kitagawa for the fifth.As for the sixth concert, we once again asked Ko Matsushita to appear as our guest conductor. Together we performed "A Happy Woman for SSA Chorus a cappella", which we had commissioned him to compose. We also held 'Chorus Joint Concert', the collaboration between Ko Matsushita and various choirs from Shikoku, four times between the years of 2006 and 2013. Currently we are making every effort to widen our range of performance, under the instruction of Motoi Kondo, a conductor from Ehime.
Motoi Kondo
Kondo was born in Ehime Prefecture, and is a graduate of Shinsyu University. He studied conducting under Nobutaka Masui, and choral conducting under Masao Nakamura. He began conducting while he was a member of the Shinsyu University Mixed Choir, and was greatly influenced by Shin Sekiya. Upon graduation, he continued with his musical activities, mainly in the Nagano area. Kondo is currently the assistant conductor of BärenChor, resident conductor of Ensemble Lumine, conductor‐in‐residence of the Shinsyu University Glee Club, ensemble trainer of the Shinsyu University Mixed Choir, and conductor of Shinano Choraliers.A member of JCDA(Japan Choral Directors Association), and an executive director of Nagano-Chushin Chorus Association.
