Ichiyanagi, Toshi 1933 - 2022
Author: Sudoh, Eiko
Last updated：April 24, 2018
Author: Sudoh, Eiko
Born in 1933 as the only child of a cellist father and a piano teacher mother. From around age six, he became familiar with the piano under his mother's guidance and was exposed to various types of music through records collected by his father. From junior high school, he studied composition under Kishio Hirao and Tomojiro Ikenouchi, and piano under Chieko Hara. He honed his talent under these mentors, who had studied in Paris, and while still in high school, he won awards in the composition division of the Music Competition of Japan for three consecutive years. This immediately brought him into the spotlight.
In 1952, at the age of 19, Ichiyanagi moved to the United States, a melting pot of avant-garde art. After studying at the Juilliard School in New York, he expanded his encounters with artists of all genres and met John Cage, a leading composer of American experimental music. Decisively influenced by Cage's philosophy of regarding sounds as they are as music, Ichiyanagi released his Piano Music series, based on indeterminacy. In 1961, at the age of 28, he returned to Japan. He introduced cutting-edge music based on indeterminacy and graphic notation to Japan, exerting a strong influence known as the "Cage Shock" across various fields.
In 1967, he traveled to the United States again, invited by the Rockefeller Foundation. While holding presentations of his works across the U.S., he encountered repetitive music by composers such as Steve Reich. After returning to Japan, while engaging in diverse collaborations with artists from various genres, he released Piano Media in 1972 and Time Sequence in 1976. These were repetitive works written in standard staff notation, but his discovery of "musical spatiality" within them brought a decisive expansion to Ichiyanagi's subsequent works. Here, "spatiality" does not refer to a physical sense but rather to an intra-musical space intertwined with musical time.
Subsequently, Ichiyanagi developed a rich compositional structure based on his theory of "musical spatiality" across a wide range of genres, starting with Piano Concerto No. 1 "Space Consciousness" (first recipient of the Otaka Prize in 1981), followed by Piano Concerto No. 2 "Winter Portrait" (1987), which also received the Otaka Prize, the Cloud Atlas series for piano written over 15 years from 1984 onwards, and other works including operas, symphonies, chamber music, and traditional Japanese music. He has received numerous awards to date, including the Otaka Prize, Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France), Mainichi Art Award, Kyoto Music Grand Prize, Suntory Music Award, Medal with Purple Ribbon, Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, and Person of Cultural Merit. Currently, he serves as an advisor to the Music Competition of Japan, a trustee of the Suntory Foundation for Arts, and Artistic Director General of the Kanagawa Arts and Culture Foundation, while also actively involved in promoting contemporary music, such as establishing the "Toshi Ichiyanagi Contemporary Award" in 2015.
Author : Sudoh, Eiko
Last Updated: April 24, 2018
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Author : Sudoh, Eiko
Born in 1933, Toshi Ichiyanagi was the only child of a cello player and a piano teacher. From about six years old, He became acquainted with the piano under his mother’s lessons, and touched various music from his father’s collection of records. He studied composition with Kishio Hirao, Yujiro Ikeuchi, and studied piano with Chieko Hara from junior high school age. He developed his talents under teachers who studied in Paris, and won prizes in the composition section of the Japanese Music Competition for the third consecutive year when he was a high school student. He got a lot of attention.
In 1952, at the age of 19, Ichiyanagi went to America, where avant-garde art was flourishing. After studying at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, he expanded encounters with artists of various genres, and encountered John Cage who was a representative composer of American experimental music. He published the Piano Music series which was written by graphic notation in the style of music of indeterminacy, which was decisively impacted by Cage’s idea that accepts sound itself as music. In 1961, he returned home at the age of 28, and gave a strong impact, called Cage Shock, in various fields by introducing American experimental music.
In 1967, returning to the USA for the invitation of the Rockefeller Foundation, he actively gave presentations of his works and encountered Minimal Music such as Steve Reich’s music. After returning to Japan, he collaborated with multi-genre artists,
and then published Piano Media in 1972 and Time Sequence in 1976. For most people, these are repetitive musics, such as Minimal Music, written on ordinary music paper, but for him, these are not just repetitive musics since he discovered music as a spatial art as a concept for his composition. Spatial means not a space in the physical sense, but in the mental sense, combined with musical time.
After that, Ichiyanagi developed his works based on the concept music as a spatial art. Some of these works are:
- Piano Concerto No.1 “Reminiscence of Spaces” which was first awarded the Otaka Prize in 1981
- Piano Concerto No. 2 “Portrait of Winter” which was also awarded the Otaka Prize in 1987
- a series of “cloud Atlas” for pianos which were written over 15 years since 1984
- operas
- symphonies
- chamber music
- Japanese music, and so on.
He received a lot of Prizes such as:
- the Otaka Prize
- the French Medal for Culture
- the Mainichi Arts Award
- the Kyoto Music Award
- the Suntory Music Award
- the Medal with Purple Ribbon
- the Gold Rays with Rosette
- the Persons in Cultural Merit etc.
Currently, he serves as:
- Adviser of the Japan Music Competition
- Councilor of Suntory Foundation for Arts
- General Artistic Director of the Kanagawa Arts Foundation, etc.
In addition, he has been actively involved in the spread of contemporary music, such as the founding of the “Ichiyanagi Toshi Contemporary Award”.
Works(59)
Concerto
concerto (5)
Piano Concerto No.5 "Finland" -for 2012 the left hand-
Composed in: 2012 Playing time: 18 min 00 sec
Piano Solo
character pieces (20)
Piano Ensemble
Various works (3)
Chamber Music
Chamber music (26)
Lied
Various works (3)