Yūji Takahashi

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Yūji Takahashi ( Japanese 高橋 悠 治 , Takahashi Yūji ; born September 21, 1938 in Tokyo Prefecture ) is a Japanese composer and pianist.

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Takahashi, the older brother of the pianist Aki Takahashi , had his first music lessons with his father, a violin teacher, and from 1945 with Dan Ikuma . He later studied composition with Minao Shibata and Rō Ogura and studied from 1954 to 1958 at the Tōhō Gakuen Daigaku piano with Hiroshi Itō .

From 1960 Takahashi worked as a répétiteur for the Nikkikai opera group . In 1962 his first work, Fonogene for twelve players and electronic sounds, was premiered. With the composers Toshi Ichiyanagi and Kenji Kobayashi he founded the ensemble for new music New Directions , to which Kuniharu Akiyama also belonged. In the field of film music he worked with Tōru Takemitsu .

In 1963 he came to Berlin on a DAAD scholarship , where he met Elliott Carter and Frederic Rzewski and studied composition with Iannis Xenakis . From 1964 Takahashi was a pianist in the Parisian music group Domaine Musicale . During this time Xenakis composed compositions like Chromamorphhe I for seven instruments (1964), Chromamorphhe II for piano (1965) and 6 Stoicheia for four violins (1965).

In 1965 Takashi worked in Stockholm as a member of the experimental music group Vierkingen . He went to New York in 1966 with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation . Here he studied computer music and attended the summer courses at the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood until 1968 . 1968–1969 he was a member of the Center of the Creative and Performing Arts in Buffalo. 1971–1972 he taught at Indiana University and at the San Francisco Conservatory. He then returned to Japan and has lived in Tokyo as a freelance composer and pianist ever since.

The pianist Takashi was best known as an interpreter of contemporary works. He premiered several works by Tōru Takemitsu ( Piano Distance , 1961; Corona , 1962; Arc , 1963; Asterism , 1969), and his teacher Xenakis composed Herma (1962) and Eonta (1964) for him . He has worked as a soloist with the London Symphony Orchestra , the New York Philharmonic Orchestra , the Boston Symphony Orchestra , the Chicago Symphony Orchestra , the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra , the Philadelphia Orchestra , the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and has performed with the International Music Council Congress of UNESCO in 1966 and 1968 and at the 1970 World Exhibition in Osaka.

In addition to the complete pianistic works of Arnold Schönberg , Anton Webern and Alban Berg , Takahashi has recorded compositions by Olivier Messiaen , Xenakis, John Cage , Frederic Rzewski, Cornelius Cardew , Tōru Takemitsu, Selamat A. Sjukur , Earle Brown and Roger Reynolds . As a conductor, he has recorded compositions by Xenakis, José Maceda , Sofia Gubaidulina , John Zorn and Edgar Varèse .

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personal data
SURNAME Takahashi, Yūji
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 高橋 悠 治 (Japanese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese composer and pianist
DATE OF BIRTH September 21, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Tokyo prefecture