Maki Ishii

Maki Ishii (Japanese石井 眞 木, Maki Ishii, born May 28, 1936 in Tokyo, Japan, † April 8, 2003 in Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, Japan ) was a Japanese composer and conductor.

Life

Maki Ishii was born as the third son of the dancer and choreographer Baku Ishii and actress Yae Ishii. He is brother of composer Kan Ishii.

He studied from 1952 to 1958 composition and conducting in Tokyo among others, Akira Ifukube. He then continued his studies at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin with Boris Blacher and Josef Rufer. In 1962 he returned to Japan.

In 1969 he was invited by the German Academic Exchange Service during the Berlin Artists' Programme to Berlin. Since then he has been active as a composer and conductor in Berlin and Tokyo.

On 8 April 2003, he died in the National Cancer Center in Kashiwa Kashiwa thyroid. He was 66 years old.

Music

His early compositions were characterized by the serial music and other Western European compositional techniques of the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1960s, he discovered the traditional Japanese music for his compositions; since that time, these are dominated by the confrontation between European methods of composition and elements of the sound world of Japanese traditional music.

Works (selection)

Awards

• Otaka Prize (1977, Tokyo, NHK Symphony Orchestra )
• 4 Nakajima Music Prize Grand Prix (1986, Tokyo)
• German Critics' Award 1987 ( category Music )
• 5 Kyoto Music Award: Grand Prix (1990 )
• Japanese Order of Merit on the purple band (1999, awarded by the Japanese Emperor )