Japans Avantgarde Pioneer Composer Ichiyanagi Dies At 89
TOKYO. Avant-garde pianist and composer Toshi Ichiyanagi, who was mentored by John Cage and who led Japan's breakthrough in modern experimental music, has died. He was 89 years old.
Ichianagi, who was married to Yoko Ono before marrying John Lennon, died on Friday, according to the Kanagawa Arts Foundation, where Ichianagi served as chief artistic director. The cause of death is not reported.
"We want to express our sincere gratitude to all those who loved him during his life," foundation president Kazumi Tamamura said Saturday.
Ichianagi studied at the Juilliard School in New York and pioneered a free-spirited compositional technique that left much to chance, including not only traditional Japanese elements and instruments but also electronic music.
He worked with pioneering Japanese artists such as Jasper Johns and Mars Cunningham, as well as the architect Kisho Kurokawa and the polygamous poet and playwright Shuji Terayama. Years from the mid-fifties.
"In my work, I try to allow different elements, which in music are often perceived as opposites and opposites, to coexist and permeate each other," Ichianagi once said in an artist statement.
According to him, traditional Japanese music has inspired and motivated him because he is not interested in "temporary art" or "divisions" as relative and absolute, or accepting new and old definitions of music.
He says that contemporary music is more about "having enough space to recover the spiritual richness that music provides."
His music moved freely between influences and cultures, moving from the minimalist avant-garde to Western opera.
Ichianaghi traveled the world, presenting his work at Carnegie Hall in New York and the Champs-Élysées in Paris. The National Theater of Japan commissioned him for several productions.
His 2013 Marimba Concerto and Piano Concerto no. Ichiyanagi 6 has been a success for many years as a single at the Tokyo Film Festival in 2016.
Ichianaghi has received numerous awards, including the Alexander Grechaninov Prize of the Juilliard Federation, the Order of Arts and Letters of the French Republic and the Order of the Rising Sun, Golden Ray with Pink, and the Order of the Purple Ribbon of the Government of Japan. .
Born in Kobe to a family of musicians, Ichianagi showed promise as a composer at an early age. He won a major competition in Japan before moving to the US as a teenager, when such acts were relatively rare in post-war Japan.
Private funerals were held with the family. The Japanese press reports that a public ceremony was prepared in his honor, which was organized by his son.
