沢 知恵/さわ ともえ 歌手--うたとピアノ-- 1971年神奈川県で日本人の父と韓国人の母の間に生まれる。幼いころより日本、韓国、アメリカで育ち、ピアノに親しむ。東京芸術大学在学中に歌手デビューし、現在までに16枚のアルバムを発表している。96年より海外でもコンサート活動を始め、98年には韓国で初めて日本語でうたう。同年第４０回日本レコード大賞アジア音楽賞受賞。2001年より毎年香川県ハンセン病療養所大島青松園で無料コンサートを開いている。東京下北沢ラカーニャにて季節公演を行っている。 Tomoe Sawa Singer, songwriter, pianist.
Tomoe Sawa was born in Kawasaki, Japan in 1971 to a Japanese father and a Korean mother, both pastors. She herself is religious, and admits that gospel music had a deep influence on her, both artistically and spiritually. (Her Korean grandfather, Kim So-Un, is a famous poet known for the Iwanami- Bunko series, poems that he translated from Korean to Japanese.) Raised in Japan, Korea and the United States, Tomoe speaks and sings in the national languages of all three countries; and her multi-cultural musical style resonates with the positive impact those three cultures had on her.
Tomoe started playing the piano at the age of three. By the time she was in high school, Tomoe's early classical training had won her numerous
competitive awards and had gained the attention of several major music schools in the US. However, it was her encounter with jazz during high school that totally changed her life. Her ambition to create something "truly creative and unique" led her to study musicology at Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music instead of continuing as a pianist. She would focus on ethnomusicology, and eventually won a Thesis of the Year Award for her work, "Music of The Democratic People's Republic of Korea~Ideology and Music."
Tomoe's singing career started in 1991 when she made her debut album [Tomoe Sings] (BMG Japan) with producer George Duke. Through experiments in live shows and recordings, she gradually established her own style by 1996, which developed into simply playing the piano and being the sole vocal. "I guess Nina Simone is my ideal," she says. Tomoe has never been a hit maker, and her music is hard to characterize. Although she prefers not to appear on TV, her concerts somehow always sell out. Her musical excellence and spiritual performance earn high praise, as do her sensitive treatment of words. To date, 16 albums have been released, including [Black Complex] (BMG Japan), [Kokoro] (Toshiba EMI), and [Iiuta-Iroiro Series] (cosmos records).
Tomoe's music has since taken her outside of Japan, where she has established an international reputation. In 1996, Tomoe became the first singer with Japanese nationality to perform in Seoul, Korea, where Japanese pop music had long been prohibited. Korea's "Kwangju Japan Week" in 1998 saw her officially become the first artist in that country since World War II to sing in Japanese. In the same year, she won the Asian Music Award at the 40th Nippon Record Awards. She has also performed in the US, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Northern Ireland.
