Toshiro Mayuzumi


Toshiro Mayuzumi was a Japanese composer known for his implementation of avant-garde instrumentation alongside traditional Japanese musical techniques. His works drew inspiration from a variety of sources ranging from jazz to Balinese music, and he was considered a pioneer in the realm of musique concrète and electronic music, being the first artist in his country to explore these techniques. In the span of his career, his works included symphonies, ballets, operas, and film scores, and was the recipient of an Otaka prize by the NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Purple Medal of Merit.

Biography

Mayuzumi was a student of Tomojirō Ikenouchi and Akira Ifukube at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music immediately following the Second World War, graduating in 1951. He then went to Europe where he attended the Paris Conservatoire national supérieur de musique, studying with Aubin and becoming familiar with the new developments of Olivier Messiaen and Pierre Boulez, as well as with the techniques of musique concrète.
He was initially enthusiastic about avant-garde Western music, especially that of Varèse, but beginning in 1957 he turned to pan-Asianism for new sonorous material.
A prolific composer for the cinema, he composed more than a hundred film scores between Waga ya wa tanoshi in 1951 and Jo no mai in 1984. The best-known film with a score by Mayuzumi is probably The Bible: In the Beginning, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score. He also wrote many pieces for wind band that have been recorded by the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra.
Mayuzumi was the recipient of a Suntory Music Award in 1996.

Works

Operas