In January 2025, at The NAMM Show in Anaheim, a crowd pressed toward AlphaTheta’s booth as a compact instrument called ChordCat purred to life. At the center was Rin Nagaya, who performs with the stage name 123. She is a Japan-born vocalist, composer, producer, and DJ and at AlphaTheta's booth, she was stringing harmony into motion, slipping from global grooves to jazz-inflected phrasing and back to beat-driven electronics without breaking a sweat. It was a perfect snapshot of her career to date: a fearless, internationally recognized musician who moves with equal authority on a festival stage, in a choreographer’s black-box theater, and inside top-tier recording studios shaping the sound of major brands.
In January 2025, at The NAMM Show in Anaheim, a crowd pressed toward AlphaTheta’s booth as a compact instrument called ChordCat purred to life. At the center was Rin Nagaya, who performs with the stage name “123." She is a Japan-born vocalist, composer, producer, and DJ and at AlphaTheta's booth, she was stringing harmony into motion, slipping from global grooves to jazz-inflected phrasing and back to beat-driven electronics without breaking a sweat. It was a perfect snapshot of her career to date: a fearless, internationally recognized musician who moves with equal authority on a festival stage, in a choreographer’s black-box theater, and inside top-tier recording studios shaping the sound of major brands.
Nagaya, who is based in Los Angeles, currently serves as the vocalist, composer, and music producer for Backslash, Ltd. The role is more than a title. She performs as the lead singer, directs all vocal sessions, composes and arranges original music, and steers full-stack production for the company’s client projects. Early 2025 found her voice and production instincts front and center in Japan in advertising campaigns for Shiseido brands—including Clé de Peau Beauté, Elixir, Anessa, and MAQuillAGE—as well as INPEX, one of the country’s largest energy companies.
The technology world took notice, too. AlphaTheta, the award-winning Yokohama-based music tech innovator behind cutting-edge DJ gear, tapped Nagaya to perform at and demo their portable composition device ChordCat at The NAMM Show 2025 and to lead their April 2025 product video; and she is already slated to return to the industry’s biggest stage at NAMM 2026 to showcase ChordCat’s composition powers in front of a global audience. It’s a rare dual vantage point—artist and ambassador—that highlights her dexterity in translating complex tools into musical moments.
In addition to her studio work. Nagaya is also an ccomplished composer for contemporary dance and theater. In 2023, she wrote the full score for Yu.S.Artistry’s “Memories of the Moon" and toured the show across Pennsylvania and New York, taking the lead mic nightly to perform her own songs “F.T.B." and “2/10." The production—directed by choreographer Yuki Ishiguro and inspired by a prisoner’s diary from a WWII Japanese internment camp—earned coverage in Dance Enthusiast and New York Seikatsu, among others, and anchored a run at the sprawling Philadelphia Fringe Festival. The same year, she composed “Dream of A" for the company, further cementing a relationship that now stretches through 2028 with new commissions for “Looking in the Mirror" (2026), “Falling Down" (2027), and “All of Me" (2028).
Her theater and dance credits extend beyond a single troupe. Nagaya was the lead composer for the dance production “Apathetic" at New York’s Spark Theater Festival, composed the score to “Misalignment" for the long-running Japanese company Dance House, and composed for “False Roof," choreographed and performed by acclaimed artist John Trunfio. Each project pulled different threads from her palette—world music textures, the immediacy of pop hooks, jazz sensibility, and an electronic producer’s ear—into cohesive narratives that translated across cultures and mediums.
If there was a single track that announced Rin’s global ambitions to the wider music world, it was “Forgotten People." In 2024, the song won the Grand Prize in the World Music category at the John Lennon Songwriting Contest—an international competition founded in 1997 that draws more than 20,000 entries each year yet crowns only two dozen Grand Prize winners. Japanese national outlets from Kahoku Shinbun to Iwate Nippo covered the win. The piece reappeared in 2025 onstage at the Boston Conservatory in Movement in Harmony’s multimedia production “The Americas – Shadows & Light," a fitting echo of how her compositions travel from record to performance with ease.
Her studio credentials keep pace with her stage victories. Since 2024, Nagaya has been a key collaborator at Hummingbird Recordings with award-winning composer and recording artist Yuki Kanesaka, whose credits include scores associated with Adult Swim’s Dr. Stone and NBC Universal Entertainment Japan’s Kawagoe Boys Sing!, along with a Best Score nomination at the 2022 Anime Awards. On March 4, 2025, Rin stepped forward as lead vocalist and co-composer/lyricist of “Believe It," which later became the theme song for Kawagoe Boys Sing! in Japan. Earlier that year she engineered sessions for “Snowball Earth" at Hummingbird—another example of her fluency on both sides of the glass. From 2025 through 2028, she continues as Kanesaka’s Lead Composer on projects recorded in Massachusetts, contributing music designed for major media clients across film, streaming, and advertising.
Meanwhile, Rin’s live calendar reads like a guided tour of the contemporary scene. In Los Angeles, she became a regular headliner in the Breaking Sound LA series in 2025, appearing solo and alongside the rising artist Arisha, including a featured set at Rudolph’s Bar & Tea and a night at Madame Siam. That same year, she took a starring slot at SiriusXM’s Open Haus Radio session at IO Music Academy and joined the Brooklyn edition of Daniel Jean’s “Biggest Content Day Ever," a day-long media and music event featuring a slate of noteable musical performers. Before that, she lit up a 2024 “LA Beats & Fusion Night" in Culver City and, earlier still, cut her teeth on iconic Boston stages—fronting Fancy Sauce at The Middle East; sharing a bill with boundary-pushing pop auteur Alice Longyu Gao at The Red Room in a concert that took place as part of “The CEO" concert ttour; and co-headlining The Loft with Mari Aoki. From 2021 to 2024, she served as lead singer for Massive Groove Band, working high-end private events across New England.
What’s most striking about Rin’s current work is how completely her future is booked. Across 2025-2028, she is in the producer’s chair and the vocal booth for a cross-continental roster of respected artists: composing and producing “Flower" for Australian-born pianist-producer Somesh Das; providing vocals for and producing Desmond Roberts’ 2026 album “In the Morning;" writing and producing “Fake World" with world champion ukulele virtuoso Sho Humphries; producing Nikita Sharma’s 2027 album “Confession" after previously producing Sharma’s single “Who Do I Blame" in 2023; producing “Falling" for the recording artist Aayushi Kumar (who performs under the name “I.You.She") in 2026; producing, composing, and singing vocals on Owen Nathanael’s globe-spanning album “Ocean of the World;" and doubling as lead vocalist and producer on Lillian McKenzie’s “Jazz and Goodnight" in 2027. She will also produce Gabriel Garcia’s 2026 album “Blue" and the 2027 project “Where We Go," overseeing each from pre-production to the last mastering pass. Each collaboration is both a vote of confidence and an acknowledgment: established artists and companies increasingly rely on Rin’s taste, discipline, and panoramic musicianship to elevate their work.
Add to that her ongoing commitments with BackSlash, her return to NAMM stages with AlphaTheta, and her continued composition work with Yuki Kanesaka, whose clientele spans household names across streaming and global brands, and a picture emerges of a musician in command of a rare and impressive career, equally embedded in both Japan and the United States.
Whether Rin is voicing a national campaign for a Japanese icon, debuting a score at a major festival, proving out new music tech before the industry’s gatekeepers, or fronting a boundary-crossing live set, she sets the tempo and the tone. For a generation of artists and companies seeking music that travels—across borders, genres, and mediums—Rin is already there, one step ahead.
Nagaya, who is based in Los Angeles, currently serves as the vocalist, composer, and music producer for Backslash, Ltd. The role is more than a title. She performs as the lead singer, directs all vocal sessions, composes and arranges original music, and steers full-stack production for the company’s client projects. Early 2025 found her voice and production instincts front and center in Japan in advertising campaigns for Shiseido brands—including Clé de Peau Beauté, Elixir, Anessa, and MAQuillAGE—as well as INPEX, one of the country’s largest energy companies.
The technology world took notice, too. AlphaTheta, the award-winning Yokohama-based music tech innovator behind cutting-edge DJ gear, tapped Nagaya to perform at and demo their portable composition device ChordCat at The NAMM Show 2025 and to lead their April 2025 product video; and she is already slated to return to the industry’s biggest stage at NAMM 2026 to showcase ChordCat’s composition powers in front of a global audience. It’s a rare dual vantage point—artist and ambassador—that highlights her dexterity in translating complex tools into musical moments.
In addition to her studio work. Nagaya is also an ccomplished composer for contemporary dance and theater. In 2023, she wrote the full score for Yu.S.Artistry’s “Memories of the Moon" and toured the show across Pennsylvania and New York, taking the lead mic nightly to perform her own songs “F.T.B." and “2/10." The production—directed by choreographer Yuki Ishiguro and inspired by a prisoner’s diary from a WWII Japanese internment camp—earned coverage in Dance Enthusiast and New York Seikatsu, among others, and anchored a run at the sprawling Philadelphia Fringe Festival. The same year, she composed “Dream of A" for the company, further cementing a relationship that now stretches through 2028 with new commissions for “Looking in the Mirror" (2026), “Falling Down" (2027), and “All of Me" (2028).
Her theater and dance credits extend beyond a single troupe. Nagaya was the lead composer for the dance production “Apathetic" at New York’s Spark Theater Festival, composed the score to “Misalignment" for the long-running Japanese company Dance House, and composed for “False Roof," choreographed and performed by acclaimed artist John Trunfio. Each project pulled different threads from her palette—world music textures, the immediacy of pop hooks, jazz sensibility, and an electronic producer’s ear—into cohesive narratives that translated across cultures and mediums.
If there was a single track that announced Rin’s global ambitions to the wider music world, it was “Forgotten People." In 2024, the song won the Grand Prize in the World Music category at the John Lennon Songwriting Contest—an international competition founded in 1997 that draws more than 20,000 entries each year yet crowns only two dozen Grand Prize winners. Japanese national outlets from Kahoku Shinbun to Iwate Nippo covered the win. The piece reappeared in 2025 onstage at the Boston Conservatory in Movement in Harmony’s multimedia production “The Americas – Shadows & Light," a fitting echo of how her compositions travel from record to performance with ease.
Her studio credentials keep pace with her stage victories. Since 2024, Nagaya has been a key collaborator at Hummingbird Recordings with award-winning composer and recording artist Yuki Kanesaka, whose credits include scores associated with Adult Swim’s Dr. Stone and NBC Universal Entertainment Japan’s Kawagoe Boys Sing!, along with a Best Score nomination at the 2022 Anime Awards. On March 4, 2025, Rin stepped forward as lead vocalist and co-composer/lyricist of “Believe It," which later became the theme song for Kawagoe Boys Sing! in Japan. Earlier that year she engineered sessions for “Snowball Earth" at Hummingbird—another example of her fluency on both sides of the glass. From 2025 through 2028, she continues as Kanesaka’s Lead Composer on projects recorded in Massachusetts, contributing music designed for major media clients across film, streaming, and advertising.
Meanwhile, Rin’s live calendar reads like a guided tour of the contemporary scene. In Los Angeles, she became a regular headliner in the Breaking Sound LA series in 2025, appearing solo and alongside the rising artist Arisha, including a featured set at Rudolph’s Bar & Tea and a night at Madame Siam. That same year, she took a starring slot at SiriusXM’s Open Haus Radio session at IO Music Academy and joined the Brooklyn edition of Daniel Jean’s “Biggest Content Day Ever," a day-long media and music event featuring a slate of noteable musical performers. Before that, she lit up a 2024 “LA Beats & Fusion Night" in Culver City and, earlier still, cut her teeth on iconic Boston stages—fronting Fancy Sauce at The Middle East; sharing a bill with boundary-pushing pop auteur Alice Longyu Gao at The Red Room in a concert that took place as part of “The CEO" concert ttour; and co-headlining The Loft with Mari Aoki. From 2021 to 2024, she served as lead singer for Massive Groove Band, working high-end private events across New England.
What’s most striking about Rin’s current work is how completely her future is booked. Across 2025-2028, she is in the producer’s chair and the vocal booth for a cross-continental roster of respected artists: composing and producing “Flower" for Australian-born pianist-producer Somesh Das; providing vocals for and producing Desmond Roberts’ 2026 album “In the Morning;" writing and producing “Fake World" with world champion ukulele virtuoso Sho Humphries; producing Nikita Sharma’s 2027 album “Confession" after previously producing Sharma’s single “Who Do I Blame" in 2023; producing “Falling" for the recording artist Aayushi Kumar (who performs under the name “I.You.She") in 2026; producing, composing, and singing vocals on Owen Nathanael’s globe-spanning album “Ocean of the World;" and doubling as lead vocalist and producer on Lillian McKenzie’s “Jazz and Goodnight" in 2027. She will also produce Gabriel Garcia’s 2026 album “Blue" and the 2027 project “Where We Go," overseeing each from pre-production to the last mastering pass. Each collaboration is both a vote of confidence and an acknowledgment: established artists and companies increasingly rely on Rin’s taste, discipline, and panoramic musicianship to elevate their work.
Add to that her ongoing commitments with BackSlash, her return to NAMM stages with AlphaTheta, and her continued composition work with Yuki Kanesaka, whose clientele spans household names across streaming and global brands, and a picture emerges of a musician in command of a rare and impressive career, equally embedded in both Japan and the United States.
Whether Rin is voicing a national campaign for a Japanese icon, debuting a score at a major festival, proving out new music tech before the industry’s gatekeepers, or fronting a boundary-crossing live set, she sets the tempo and the tone. For a generation of artists and companies seeking music that travels—across borders, genres, and mediums—Rin is already there, one step ahead.
