Toshi Ichiyanagi

Toshi Ichiyanagi was one of Japan's most imaginative composers. Inspired by the avant-garde works of John Cage, Ichiyanagi consistently found new ways to express his musical vision. His 1960 composition, Kaiki, combined Japanese instruments sho and koto, and western instruments harmonica and saxophone. His 1967 piece, Extended Voices, was written for a chorus accompanied by Moog and Buchla synthesizers. Orchestral Space, recorded in 1978 by the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra conducted by Seiji Ozawa, was composed for electronic modulators, magnetic tape, and orchestra. Ichiyanagi's most eccentric piece might be Music for Piano #5: Fluxvariation, featuring darts thrown into the back of a piano. Ichiyanagi, who studied in New York at the Juilliard School of Music and the New School for Social Research, was the recipient of the Serge Koussevitzky prize at the Berkshire Music Camp. Ichiyanagi was still composing into his eighties. He died on October 7, 2022.
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