Akio Yashiro

Akio Yashiro (Japanese矢代秋雄, Akio Yashiro, born September 10, 1929 in Tokyo, † 9 April 1976 in Yokohama ) was a Japanese composer.

As early as 1940 he received lessons in composition from Saburō Moroi. Then he studied at the Tōkyō Ongaku Gakko music theory and composition with Saburō Moroi, Kunihiko Hashimoto, Yujiro Ikeuchi and Akira Ifukube and piano with Noboru Toyomasu, Leonid Kreutzer and Kiyo Kawakami. In 1949 he completed his courses and graduated in 1951.

Together with Toshiro Mayuzumi he went abroad and studied - due to a scholarship from the French government - at the Conservatoire National Superieur in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, Tony Aubin and Olivier Messiaen. In the specialist harmony he got a first prize and peaked in the other subjects counterpoint, fugue and piano accompaniment excellent grades.

After he returned to Japan in 1956, be composed already in France String Quartet was successfully premiered and won the 8th Mainichi Music Award. His Piano Concerto (1964-1967) was even crowned with two awards, the 16th Otaka Award and the 21st National Art Festival Award.

In 1968, he was first an assistant professor at the Tōkyō Daigaku Geijutsu ( the successor institution to his alma mater ) and at the Toho Gakuen Daigaku and was appointed a full professor in 1974.

His compositions are stylistically between Maurice Ravel and Henri Dutilleux.