Toshio Hosokawa

Toshio Hosokawa (Japanese细 川 俊 夫, Toshio Hosokawa, born October 23, 1955 in Hiroshima ) is a Japanese composer.

He is one of the most important contemporary composers of Japan. His compositions include orchestral works, concertos, chamber music and film music, but also music for traditional Japanese instruments.

Life

At age four he started to play the piano. After initial studies ( piano and composition ) in Tokyo, he came to Berlin in 1976 to study composition at the University of the Arts with Isang Yun. From 1983 to 1986 he participated in Freiburg at the Academy of Music with Klaus Huber further study on.

Attention has been given to him for the first time from 1989 to 1998, when he was the artistic director of the annual Akiyoshidai International Contemporary Music Seminar and Festival. 1998 his opera Vision of Lear was premiered at the Munich Biennale. Subsequently, he was a guest composer and lecturer at almost all major festivals of contemporary music. He also worked as a lecturer at the Darmstadt Summer Courses.

Invited by Walter Fink, he was composer in 2008, the 18th annual composer's portrait of the Rheingau Musik Festival. He introduced himself with chamber music and oratorio Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima.

Toshio Hosokawa is married and now lives in Nagano, Japan.

Music

He says in European music was a sound only a part of a whole, while in the Japanese music a note representing a landscape, it always follows a sound a pause, then again a sound and a break.

He describes his music as follows: It is as if one slowly walking through a garden. ( Japanese gardens are not symmetrical. )

He began by studying European music for traditional Japanese music to interest, the understanding he had only gained by studying in Europe.

Awards and Honors (selected)

Compositions

Opera:

  • Vision of Lear (1998)
  • Hanjo (2004)
  • Matsukaze ( 2011) for a choreography by Sasha Waltz

Oratory:

  • Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima for soloists, speaker, chorus, tape (ad lib. ) And Orchestra (1989 /2001)
  • Starless night for 2 sopranos, two speakers, chorus and orchestra, with texts by Gershom Scholem, Masao Masinushi and Georg Trakl. UA: 2010, Baden Baden

For orchestra:

  • Distance Landscape I ( 1987)
  • Distance Landscape II ( 1996)
  • Distance Landscape III (1996 )
  • Wind from the Ocean (2003)
  • Woven Dreams (2010)
  • Concerto for Horn and Orchestra - Moment of Blossoming (2011)

For ensembles:

  • Voyage I - VI (1997-2002)
  • Somon -ka ( 2001-02)

Chamber music:

  • Winter bird (1978 )
  • Sen I - VII (1984-1995)
  • Vertical Time Study I - III (1992-1994)
  • For Walter (2010) for saxophone and piano, percussion ad lib., Walter Fink

Choral works:

  • Tenebrae (1993 )
  • My heart reason infinitely deep (2004)
  • Two flowers songs

Music for traditional Japanese instruments:

  • New Seed of Contemplation (1985/1995)

Film Music:

  • Shi no Toge (Sting of Death ) ( directed by Kohei Oguri )
  • Nemuru Otoko ( Sleeping Man ) ( directed by Kohei Oguri )
Film score Nagano, Nagano Kyoto Prize Integrated Authority File
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