- Yasushi Akutagawa
was a Japanese
composer and conductor. He was born and raised inTabata ,Tokyo . His father wasRyūnosuke Akutagawa .Akutagawa was taught composition by
Hashimoto Kunihiko andIfukube Akira at the Tokyo Conservatory of Music. He was one of the members of "Sannin no kai " (The Three) along withDan Ikuma andMayuzumi Toshiro .In 1954, when
Japan did not have diplomatic relations withthe Soviet Union yet, he entered the Soviet Union illegally, and made friends withDmitri Shostakovich ,Aram Khachaturian andDmitri Borisovich Kabalevsky . Akutagawa was the only Japanese composer whose works were officially published in the Soviet Union at that time.His works were influenced by
Igor Stravinsky , Shostakovich,Sergei Prokofiev andAkira Ifukube .He was popular as a master of ceremonies of TV shows as well. As an educator, he devoted himself to train an amateur orchestra, Shin Kokyo Gakudan ("The New Symphony Orchestra"). Almost one year after Akutagawa died, in 1990, the "Akutagawa composition award" was established in his memory.
elected List of Works
*"Préludes pour orchestre symphonique" (1947)
*"Trinita sinfonica" for orchestra (1948)
*"La danse" for piano (1948)
*"Musica per orchestra sinfonica (Music for Symphony Orchestra)" (1950)
*"Ballade" for violin and piano (1951)
*"Triptyque" for string orchestra (1953)
*"Prima sinfonia" (1954/55)
*"Ellora Symphony" (1958)
*Opera "L'Orphee de Hiroshima (Orpheus in Hiroshima)" (1960/67)
*"Music for strings no. 1" (1962)
*Ballet suite "The Spider Web" (1968)
*"Concerto ostinato" for violoncello and orchestra (1969)
*"Rhapsodia per orchestra" (1971)
*"24 Preludes" for piano (1979)
*"Allegro ostinato" for orchestra (1986)
*"Sounds" for organ and orchestra (1986)Film score
*Gate of Hell (1953)
*Fires on the Plain (film) (1959)
*Portrait of Hell (1969)
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