Land of the Midnight Sun - Naoko Ikeda

Naoko Ikeda has composed some truly beautiful music - and one that I’ve been immersing myself in this week has been Land of the Midnight Sun from The Graded Collection edited by Andrew Eales. This is from the Grade 5 section and has some harmonies that I just love, and that single out Naoko’s music from the more traditional melodies in Western music.
One of the challenges in this piece is in the second section where the left hand has a syncopated rhythm against the right hand melody, which then swaps so the right hand has the syncopated accompaniment and the left hand has the melody which should sing out over the accompaniment.
This is by no means the only ‘good’ piece in the book, there are so many lovely pieces, so probably more videos to come! If you want to explore this book, it’s quite distinctive with a beautiful pink cherry blossom cover 🌸 I’ll post a picture in the comments.
So, what do you think? Have you played Naoko Ikeda’s compositions before? Tell me about them!
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[@angusrobertsonpianist]

A very nice piece of music😃🎵👏. Is Naoko Ikeda from a Scandinavian country?I did try looking up the composer, but couldn't find any information, hence my question.

[@VictoriaClarkPiano]

She is Japanese, from Hokkaido- Andrew Eales did a great review of her book here with some background :)