Akira Ifukube
Ifukube Akira (Japanese伊福 部 昭; born May 31, 1914 in Kushiro, Hokkaidō, Japan, † February 8, 2006 in Tokyo ) was a Japanese composer. Internationally he is best known for his compositions to Kaiju films.
Life
His birthplace is the island of Hokkaidō. This region is one of those areas in which even the Ainu, an indigenous Japanese people live. As a boy he listened to their music, and they influenced him so much that the creativity of this original music in his own works, he composed much later, found again.
First, Ifukube studied forestry at the University of Hokkaido.
After he had heard as a 14- year-old Igor Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps, he decided to devote himself to music. He brought a self-taught to play the violin at and - at first - also composing. His first work that made Bon Odori Suite for Piano already sit up, even though he really only composed in his spare time. In 1935 he achieved his breakthrough with the orchestral work Rhapsody Japanese, with whom he on the of Alexander Tcherepnin, who had emigrated just after Shanghai, initiated international competition for young composers won a first prize. In the competition jury Albert Roussel, Arthur Honegger, Alexsander Tansman, Tibor Harsanyi, Pierre- Octave Ferroud and Henri Gil- Marchex, which precipitated a unanimous verdict were sitting. The premiere was in 1936 by the Boston People's Orchestra under the direction of Febian Sevitsky. When Jean Sibelius 1939 attended the first performance in Helsinki, was the skepticism Japanese composers whose work was barely listed abroad and especially in Europe, is eliminated.
In 1936, he studied modern Western composition, at the time when Alexander Tcherepnin was in Japan.
After he had completed his studies ( Forestry and music), he initially worked as a forester. During World War II he served in the imperial army. There, however, he also studies the elasticity and the vibration behavior of wood.
After the Second World War, he began in 1946 as a lecturer at Nihon University College of Art, where he remained until 1953 and wrote the first time works for the movie ( The End of the Silver Mountains ), especially for the Toho studios. His film music was very fast highly sought after because it was characterized by great ingenuity and the symbiosis between Far Eastern and Western elements.
A milestone was certainly the music for Godzilla ( Gojira ), King of the Monsters, a science fiction film directed by Ishiro Honda, which earned him an international reputation in the field of film music. That was the beginning of an "infinite " history of composition for the film: More than 250 scores emerged since the mid-50s of the last century. In Japan, he enjoys just as much prestige as a John Williams, Aaron Copland, Miklos Rozsa and Bernard Herrmann in the U.S..
Even if the film music enabled him financially carefree life, but his heart was working as a freelance composer. In 1974, he returned as professor back at the Tokyo College of Music. A year later he was even president of the college. In 1987, he was active as a professor emeritus and still President of the ethnomusicological department of the college. He published a 1000 page book about music theory and orchestration.
In 1957 he won with the score of Mahiru no Ankoku Mainichi Eiga Concours of the price. In 1979 he was nominated for the film music Ogin - sama and 1995 for the soundtrack Gojira tai Mosura for the Japanese Film Award of the Japanese Academy Awards.
Awards
Work
For orchestra
For Concert Band
Chamber Music
For piano
- Suite for Piano
Vocal and Choral Music
Stage Works
For Guitar
- Toka Kugoka