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Chikako Yamanaka was born in Mie Prefecture and raised in Okayama Prefecture. She began studying the piano at the age of three and composing at the age of twelve.
She graduated at the top of her class from the Department of Composition at the Tokyo University of the Arts, after which she completed her master’s degree majoring in composition in the Music Research Department of the same university.

She also has been received numerous prizes and selected in domestic and international competitions, the finalist in the 74 th Japan Music Competition in the chamber music composition category in 2005.
In 2010 she gained third prize in the Tōru Takemitsu Composition Awards adjudicated by Tristan Murail. In 2013 she was the only composer from an Asian country to receive a prize in the Witold Lutosławski International Composers’ Competition, held to celebrate the Polish composer’s centennial year.
Also in 2013 she became the first Japanese composer to receive two special prizes (the Prix du Public and the Prix ‘Jeune Public’) in the composition category at the Geneva International Music Competition.
She has received many commissions from individuals, ensembles and foundations, and in recent years has composed a series of works on the basis of commissions for works to be performed in the B→C (B to C, i.e. ‘Bach to Contemporary’) series of concerts sponsored by the Tokyo Opera City Cultural Foundation. In particular, her work Kannagi (2020) composed to a commission from the soprano Rena Fujii, received high praise in a review published in the magazine Ongaku no Tomo(prominent Japanese music magazines).

Many of her works have been published. In 2021 two of her chamber works, Kotonoha for violin and piano commissioned by Kazuki Yamada and In the Fleeting Spring for flute and piano, were published by Zen-On Music to widespread interest and acclaim.
2023 saw the highly successful world premieres of her first work for wind band Tenjō no hanataba (‘Bouquet in the Heavens’) commissioned by the Hamamatsu Cultural Foundation and Combat del somni (‘Dream Struggle’), a suite for chorus and orchestra commissioned by Osaka Collegium Musicum.
Her major works range widely from pieces for solo instruments to orchestral compositions.
Especially noteworthy are her works for choir for which she has written her own texts and which attempt to convey a universal message and approach through the fusion of words and sound, and her large-scale compositions combining voices and instruments.