IRINO, Yoshiro

Born in Vladivostok in 1921, Yoshiro Irino studied composition with Saburo Moroi while a student at Tokyo Imperial University (now the University of Tokyo). After the end of the Second World War he joined the Shinseikai group of composers led by Minao Shibata and subsequently immersed himself in the study of twelve-tone music with reference to René Leibowitz’s book Schoenberg and his School, to which he was introduced by the composer Kunio Toda after the latter’s post-war repatriation from Vietnam. In 1951 he composed his Chamber Concerto for Seven Instruments, the first work by a Japanese composer to employ the twelve-tone technique. In 1956 he planned a festival of contemporary music together with Toshiro Mayuzumi and the following year created the Twentieth Century Music Institute. In 1967, together with Makoto Moroi, he set up the Japan-Germany Contemporary Music Festival with the aim of presenting contemporary music from other countries to Japanese audiences. In 1973, together with Maki Ishii, he formed the Tokk Ensemble, which was active in presenting contemporary Japanese music overseas. Also in 1973, he played a leading role in the formation of the Asian Composers League (ACL), and beginning in 1976 organised the Pan Music Festival in Tokyo, thus making a major contribution to the dissemination of contemporary music both inside and outside Japan. Soon after the end of the war he became involved in music education in his role as instructor at the Children’s Music School. He later took part in the creation of the Music Department at Toho Gakuen College, thereafter becoming professor and director in the department, in which capacity he made an important contribution to the development of the world of music in Japan. His compositional output includes more than a hundred works including a significant number for Japanese traditional instruments. He was the recipient of many prizes and awards including the Otaka Prize, the Mainichi Music Prize, the Italia Prize and the Salzburg Television Opera Prize. He was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette posthumously in 1980.