is a Japanese composer of

contemporary classical music Contemporary classical music is classical music composed close to the present day. At the beginning of the 21st century, it commonly referred to the post-1945 modern forms of post-tonal music after the death of Anton Webern, and included se ...

.Luciana Galliano, ''The Music of Joji Yuasa'' ed. Peter Burt. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012.

Early life and education

Joji Yuasa was born in Kōriyama,

Fukushima may refer to: Japan * Fukushima Prefecture, Japanese prefecture **Fukushima, Fukushima, capital city of Fukushima Prefecture, Japan *** Fukushima University, national university in Japan *** Fukushima Station (Fukushima) in Fukushima, Fukushim ...

and is a self-taught composer. He first became interested in music while a pre medical student at

Keio University , mottoeng = The pen is mightier than the sword , type = Private research coeducational higher education institution , established = 1858 , founder = Yukichi Fukuzawa , endow ...

, and in 1952 he joined a young artists’ grou
Jikken Kobo
(Experimental Workshop, 1951 - 1957) in Tokyo, an organization for the exploration of new directions in the arts, including multimedia.

Career

From 1981 to 1994 he was a music researcher and professor at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

, where he is currently a professor emeritus. He has also served as a guest professor at the Tokyo College of Music since 1981, a professor at Nihon University since 1993 and an honorary member of ISCM. Yuasa is the recipient of a 1996 Suntory Music Award. Yuasa has written a wide range of compositions, including orchestral, choral and chamber music, music for theatre, and intermedia, electronic and computer music. His style has been described as "consistent explorations of a distinctive, maverick yet elegant voice" that has elements of twelve tone, impressionism, romantic, and traditional classical composition. As a guest composer and lecturer, he has contributed to the Festival of the Arts of This Century in Hawaii (1970), New Music Concerts in Toronto (1980), Asian Composers League in Hong Kong (1981), concert tour fo
Contemporary Music Network
by British Arts Council (1981),

Asia Pacific Festival Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

in New Zealand (1984), Composers Workshop in Amsterdam (1984), Darmstadt Summer Course for Contemporary Music (1988), Lerchenborg Music Tage (1986, 1988), the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo (1990), and Music of Japan Today: Tradition and Innovation (Hamilton College, NY - 1992).

Selected commissions

His works have been commissioned by the Koussevitzky Music Foundation,

Saarland Radio Symphony Orchestra The Saarland (, ; french: Sarre ) is a state of Germany in the south west of the country. With an area of and population of 990,509 in 2018, it is the smallest German state in area apart from the city-states of Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg, and t ...

, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Canada Council, Suntory Music Foundation, IRCAM and National Endowment for the Arts of the U.S.A.

Selected fellowships and awards

He has received a number of fellowships and awards, from:

Japan Society Fellowship Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

(1968–69), Composer in Residence at the Center for Music Experiment UCSD (1976), Berlin Artist Program by DAAD (1976–77), the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music in Sydney (1980), the University of Toronto (1981) and IRCAM (1987).

References

External links

Jikken KoboSchott MusicDiscogs
* * 1929 births 20th-century classical composers 20th-century Japanese composers 21st-century classical composers 21st-century Japanese composers Japanese classical composers Japanese male classical composers Living people Musicians from Fukushima Prefecture Nihon University faculty People from Kōriyama People from San Diego County, California 20th-century Japanese male musicians 21st-century Japanese male musicians {{Japan-composer-stub