AKUTAGAWA, Yasushi

He was born in 1925, the third son of writer Ryūnosuke Akutagawa in Tokyo.  In 1945, he graduated at the top of his class at Tokyo Music School in the Department of Composing.  He completed the graduate program in 1949.  He studied composing under Kunihiko Hashimoto, Kanichi Shimofusa, Akira Ifukube and others. He was widely recognized for having won the orchestral music award for the 25th anniversary of NHK broadcasting in 1950.  In rapid succession, the first public performance of “Trinita Sinfonica” (1948) and other pieces increased his popularity as he developed the creation of movie soundtracks as well as music for radio, ballets, musicals, etc., a wide variety of music including nursery rhymes. In 1953, he formed the ‘Group of Three’ with Ikuma Dan and Toshirō Mayuzumi.  He introduced his “Prima Sinfonia” (1954/55) and his “Ellora Symphony” (1958).  In 1954, when Japan had no diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, he illegally entered that country and interviewed Shostakovich and Khachaturian, thus becoming a bridge between of Japan and Russian music.  With the score of “Triptyque for String Orchestra” (1953) being published in the Soviet Union in 1956, its premiere at Carnegie Hall by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra won the Warsaw Youth Music Award among other awards and became known around the world.  Using the ostinato technique all his life, he composed various works including “Ostinata Sinfonica” (1967), “Concerto Ostinato per V’Cello ed Orchestra” (1969), “Rapsodia per Orchestra” (1971), the “GX-1 Concerto” (1974) and “Sounds for Organ and Orchestra” (1986).
As for soundtracks, he won the first Japan Film Academy’s Music Award for the music of "Mt. Hakkōda" and "Village Of The Eight Tombs" in 1978.  He received many movie contest awards for music, including the Blue Ribbon Award.  With that work, he rearranged it for concert performance as well.  After the war, Akutagawa became a driving force in radio and television music, winning the judges’ special award in the Salzburg Opera Contest for the TV opera “Orpheus of Hiroshima” (1967).  His operatic “La princesse de la lune” (1981) won the 33rd Italian Broadcast Prize in the Italian TV Division, as well as an Emmy Award, receiving praise internationally.  The musical theme for the NHK Taiga Drama Series “Akō Rōshi” is often performed separately.
He greatly contributed to the music scene for both professionals and amateurs, becoming the chairperson of the Japan Federation of Composers, a board member of the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers, and a senior director of the Yamaha Music Foundation.  While conducting the amateur New Symphony Orchestra, he won the Torii Music Award (later called the Suntory Music Award) and continued conducting until he passed away in 1989.