KYOTOPHONIE Borderless Music Festival is an annual music festival in Kyoto, Japan, exploring the spaces between genres, cultures, venues and formats. Each year, a diverse lineup of artists, from underground musicians to internationally acclaimed performers, is brought together and introduced to new audiences in some of Kyoto’s most distinctive venues.
Founded in 2023 by Lucille Reyboz and Yusuke Nakanishi, co-founders of the KYOTOGRAPHIE International Photography Festival, KYOTOPHONIE takes place each spring alongside its sister festival. Each edition responds to KYOTOGRAPHIE’s annual theme, translating its ideas from the visual into sonic and performance spaces, creating new connections between photography, music and contemporary culture.
2026 Spring — Shosei-en Rofu-tei | Higashi Honganji Temple Audio-visual Hall | Cinematic Saloon | UrBANGUILD | Ace Hotel Piopiko | Club Metro
Msaki | Tubatsi | Clément Petit | Frédéric Soulard | Richie Hawtin | Danny Jin | Aiconga | Nissie |
2025 Spring — Hulic Hall | ROHM Theatre Kyoto | Club Metro
Patti Smith & Soundwalk Collective | Kom_i | Nanao Kobayashi | Filipe Catto | Kuniko | Toyomu | Nissie | Wataru(W) | ori
2024 Autumn — ROHM Theatre Kyoto
Gilberto Gil and family band, Aquele Abraço Japan Tour 2024
2024 Spring — Hachiku-an | Higashi Honganji Temple Audio-visual Hall | Club Metro
Guy Bertrand & Los Graciosos | Xenia França | Davi Kopenawa | Eamonn Doyle | Niall Sweeney | David Donohoe | Kevin Barry | Obrigaard | Black Boboi | Yama | Bing (Hitozoku Record) | Max Pela | Yukari BB | kott | Crossbred | Wataru (W) | Aiconga | Yottu
2023 Spring — Komyo-in Zen Temple | Hosoo Hall | The Kongo Noh Theatre | ROHM Theatre Kyoto | Kyoto Concert Hall | Shosei-in | Hachiku-an | Club Metro
Inna De Yard « The Soul of Jamaica » with Horace Andy, Cedric Myton from The Congos and Winston McAnuff, backed up by Home Grown | Lucas Santtana | Fuyuki Yamakawa | Salif Keita | Eutro | Show-Go | Trio SR9 | Sandra Nkaké | La Chica | Koki Nakano | Minoshiro Yoshida | Ballaké Sissoko | Vincent Segal | Piers Faccini | Otomo Yoshihide | Keigo Oyamada | Tomoyuki Tanaka (FPM) | Peter Barakan | Kobeta Piano | DJ ◯ maru | Shinpei Noda | Kakushin Nishihara
A music event that works in a framework that sees the size of venues as positive, embracing the challenges of the spaces to create impressive and connected moments.
KYOTOPHONIE is a music festival that embraces the diversity of Kyoto’s spaces, from intimate venues to large-scale halls and unexpected locations. Rather than adapting each performance to a standard festival format, the programming constantly evolves to foster distinct experiences that connect artists, audiences and place.
KYOTOPHONIE connects local and international artists, creating opportunities for collaboration, exchange and new transcultural projects.
KYOTOPHONIE brings music, performance, and visual art together, exploring new ways of presenting and experiencing live work.
KYOTOPHONIE delivers musical experiences that evoke the feeling of travelling the world through sound.
The programme combines international artists with artists from Kyoto and Japan, creating opportunities for exchange and collaboration. By bringing together diverse musical styles, genres and approaches, we aim to create unexpected connections and encounters.
The city and wider Kyoto Prefecture offer a remarkable range of spaces and environments, from historic temples and gardens to contemporary cultural venues and natural landscapes. KYOTOPHONIE uses these settings as an integral part of the festival experience, creating encounters between music, place and audience.
Lucille Reyboz
Born in 1973, Lucille Reyboz began her journey with photography in West Africa, where she spent a part of her childhood. She first travelled to Japan whilst working with Salif Keita, accompanying him when he was invited to collaborate on Ryuichi Sakamoto’s opera LIFE (1999). A portrait photo grapher, Reyboz also produced numerous record covers for labels such as Blue Note and Verve. While developing a prolific photographic practice, she exhibited her work worldwide, most notably the series Batammaba Bâtisseurs d’Univers at Visa pour l’Image (2001), Source at Phillips de Pury, New York (2007), and Belles de Bamako at CHANEL Nexus Hall, Tokyo (2011). She has published several books, inclu ding Batammaba Bâtisseurs d’Univers (Gallimard, 2004), Source (Éditions de la Martinière, 2007), Belles de Bamako (Éditions de la Martinière, 2011) and Impressions du Japon (Éditions de la Martinière, 2013), co-authored with novelist Keiichiro Hirano. Reyboz lives and works in Kyoto, where she co-founded and co-directs KYOTOGRAPHIE International Photography Festival, alongside Yusuke Nakanishi, in 2013, and KYOTOPHONIE Borderless Music Festival in 2023.
Yusuke Nakanishi
Lighting director, co-founder and co-director of KYOTOGRAPHIE International Photography Festival and KYOTOPHONIE Borderless Music Festival. Born in 1968, Yusuke Nakanishi is a lighting artist who travels the world, expressing his impressions of light and shadow from memory. He has worked as a lighting director for feature films, stage productions, music concerts, fashion shows and interior design projects. He also created the Eatable Lights object series and has exhibited installations at the Hara Museum, the School Gallery Paris and Nuit Blanche Kyoto. Nakanishi lives and works in Kyoto, where he co-founded and co-directs KYOTOGRAPHIE International Photography Festival, alongside Lucille Reyboz, in 2013, and KYOTOPHONIE Borderless Music Festival in 2023.
