Children of Light

• Tanaka composed her suite Children of Light for piano in 1998-9.¹ The suite was published in 1999.²

“’Children of Light’ is a set of twenty piano pieces composed for children to perform. The theme of ‘Children of Light’ is wild animals in danger, and environmental problems; each of the animals named in the collection were selected from the 1996 IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals.”

Tanaka’s program notes for Children of Light³

Contents

Child of Light I: Blue Planet 
Child of Light I: Sea Turtle 
Child of Light I: Dugong 
Child of Light I: Coral Reef 
Child of Light I: Blue Whale 
Child of Light II: Green Paradise 
Child of Light II: Mountain Gorilla 
Child of Light II: Black Rhinoceros 
Child of Light II: Grevy’s Zebra 
Child of Light II: African Elephant 
Child of Light III: Prims in the Forest 
Child of Light III: Wild Water Buffalo 
Child of Light III: Giant Panda 
Child of Light III: Chinese Alligator 
Child of Light III: Tiger 
Child of Light IV: Air 
Child of Light IV: Red Faced Parrot 
Child of Light IV: Kiwi 
Child of Light IV: Crested Ibis 
Child of Light IV: Crowned Eagle 
Child of Light V: Northern Light 
Child of Light V: Galapagos Land Iguana 
Child of Light V: Marsupial Mole 
Child of Light V: Florida Panther 
Child of Light V: Polar Bear⁴

1. ¹⁷Stephen Montague, “Tanaka, Karen,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed November 15, 2021, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000048591.
2. “Karen Tanaka: Children of Light,” Wise Music Classical, accessed November 15, 2021, https://www.wisemusicclassical.com/work/14613/Children-of-Light–Karen-Tanaka/.
3. Ibid.
4. Karen Tanaka, Children of Light: The Piano Pieces for Children (London: J. & W. Chester, 1999), Internet resource.