Ryoko Aoki holds a unique position in the field of Noh theatre as a female singer and performer. She has participated in several traditional Noh plays, which were historically exclusive to male actors. Above all, she is the pioneer and inspiration of a new artistic form that combines utai – traditional Noh recitation – with contemporary music. Nearly 60 works have been written for her by various composers, including Peter Eötvös, Toshio Hosokawa, Stefano Gervasoni and José María Sánchez-Verdú.
Aoki has performed with ensembles and orchestras such as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Spanish National Orchestra and Choir (OCNE), the Ensemble intercontemporain, the Ensemble Musikfabrik, the Remix Ensemble, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Arditti Quartet, the Quatour Diotima and the Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra.
Aoki made her debut at the Teatro Real in Madrid in Wolfgang Rihm’s opera The Conquest of Mexico in the role of Malinche, in a production directed by Pierre Audi in 2013. In addition, she premiered Futari Shizuka (The Maiden from the Sea) by Toshio Hosokawa with the Ensemble intercontemporain at the Philharmonie de Paris and Secret Kiss by Peter Eötvös with the Ensemble Musikfabrik at the Philharmonie de Berlin. In 2022, she premiered Hazia la Luz by José María Sánchez-Verdú with the Spanish National Orchestra and Choir (OCNE) at the National Auditorium in Madrid.
The Spanish premiere of Futari Shizuka (The Maiden from the Sea) by Toshio Hosokawa will take place in March 2025 at the Palau de la Música in Valencia. The Argentinian-Spanish composer Fabián Panisello is composing Change, a semi-staged work about climate change for baritone, Noh voice, ensemble and electronics, which will be performed at the KONTAKTE Festival for Electroacoustic Music and Sound Art at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin in June 2025 and, in cooperation with the OENM, in Salzburg in October 2025.