Shion Sahara

Born in Osaka Prefecture in 1981, she grew up in Kanazawa City, Ishikawa Prefecture. After graduating from the Department of Social Welfare, Faculty of Sociology, Kwansei Gakuin University, she worked for a trading company and the Disaster Reconstruction System Research Institute before re-entering the Department of Composition, Faculty of Music, Tokyo University of the Arts, at the age of 27. She studied composition under Ishihara Makoto, Sawauchi Takashi, Natsuda Masakazu, Yasuoka Akio, Fukushi Norio, and Suzuki Sumiaki, and piano under Tanigai Chifumi.
Since 2014, she has organized the "Exhibition of New Works by Snow Country Composers" concert series, up to Vol. 4. In 2015, she launched her own company, Concert Plan Quessais-jeux. Since 2018, she has held solo composition exhibitions every year.
In October 2018, her solo works "The Wings of the Ball Mushi, Their Musings" and "The Snow" for vibraphone and strings were premiered in France and Lithuania, performed by Aita Mizuki. Until 2020, she also worked on narrative pieces, such as the musical picture book "Yobiboen's Summer" (illustrations by Kimura Megumi, music by Aita Mizuki, text by Sahara Shion).
She has also been commissioned to compose chamber music pieces, which have been performed in a variety of venues. She also teaches piano and solfege classes incorporating contemporary music and improvisation, teaches composition theory, composes sheet music, and writes music analysis. On cello, she is a member of the string ensemble Ensemble Franc. She is affiliated with the music agency Etowa. She is a part-time piano instructor at Japan Art College, and a cram school instructor specializing in mathematics and science.