Artist

Kazue Sawai

Kazue Sawai (1 January 1941, Kyoto - 15 February 2026) was a Japanese koto and jushichigen [17-string bass koto] player and one of the pioneers of contemporary Japanese music. Kazue began studying the koto at the age of eight under Michio Miyagi and graduated from Tokyo national university of fine arts. She collaborated, among others, with Takahashi Yuji, Peter Hamill, John Zorn, Sofia Gubaidulina, or Bang on a can.