Toshio Hosokawa (b. 1955) was born in Hiroshima, Japan. He initially studied piano and composition in Tokyo. In 1976, he moved to West Berlin to study composition at the University of the Arts under Isang Yun. From 1983 to 1986, he was a student of Klaus Huber and Brian Ferneyhough at the Freiburg University of Music, and he also took part in the Darmstadt Summer Courses. Yun, a Korean composer, had successfully merged Eastern and Western musical languages. However, it was Klaus Huber who advised Hosokawa to return to Japan and explore traditional Japanese music more deeply.
Hosokawa has been featured as a composer and/or lecturer at major European new music festivals. Since 1990, he has regularly given lectures at the Darmstadt Summer Courses, and in 1998, he was appointed composer-in-residence at the Mozarteum Summer Academy in Salzburg. He is also actively involved in Japan’s music scene: from 1989 to 1998, he was one of the founders and the artistic director of the Akiyoshidai International Contemporary Music Seminar and Festival in Yamaguchi Prefecture; from 2001, he became the artistic director of the Takefu International Music Festival in Fukui Prefecture; from 1998 to 2007, he was composer-in-residence with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra; and since 2004, he has served as a guest lecturer at the Tokyo College of Music.
Over the course of his career, he has received numerous awards, including first prize in the composition competition celebrating the Berlin Philharmonic’s 100th anniversary (1982), the Arion Music Prize (1984), the European Young Generation Composer Prize (1985), the Kyoto Music Prize (1988), the Rheingau and Duisburg City Music Prizes (1998), and the Suntory Music Award (2008).
Hosokawa’s oeuvre includes orchestral works (including concertos), a number of operas, chamber music, compositions for traditional Japanese instruments, and film music. While his main influences are the post-World War II German avant-garde composers, his musical language is deeply rooted in Oriental aesthetics. The synthesis he has created is marked by an economy of means, a prevalence of slow movement, and a deep attentiveness to sound and resonance. His music is at once dense and light; while it takes itself seriously, the sum of its parts never feels overly forceful.
Photo: KazIshikawa
