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Many famous musicians have collaborated with maestro Ifukube over the years and have performed his music. This is a listing of some of those artists.

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Keiko Abe has won worldwide recognition with her performances over the past 30 years, particularly as a gifted marimba virtuoso, able to elicit a wealth of nuances from the instrument. She has also won a reputation as a composer and arranger. In 1993, she became the first woman ever to be inducted into the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame.

Akira Ifukube's Lauda Concertata for Marimba and Orchestra, completed in 1976, was dedicated to Abe. In 1981, Abe perfomed Lauda Concertata at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

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YUMI AIKAWA (1956 - )

Yumi Aikawa was born in the town of Utadzu, Kagawa Prefecture. In 1987, she gained her doctorate in singing (soprano) form the Tokyo National University of Music and Fine Arts; this was the first time that such a degree in singing had ever been awarded in Japan.

She has performed in several events such as the NHK New Comer Concert, the Tokyo Summer Music Festival as well as countless others.

In the 1980's, she was invited to the People's Republic of China by the Chinese government on four different occasions to perfom Japanese compositions. In 1985, Aikawa perfomed at Carnegie Hall in to celebrate the a 25th "sister city" anniversary of Tokyo and New York.

Yumi Aikawa appears on several Akira Ifukube recordings; perhaps the best known is the Anthology of Vox Principal Works (30CM-391~2). Two of the pieces that appear on that album, Ode: The Sea of Okhostk (1958/1988) and The Lake Kimtaankamuito (1992), are dedicated to Aikawa.

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Yasushi Akutagawa was born in the Tabata area of Tokyo. He was the son of one of the leading Japanese writers of the first half of the 20th century, Ryunosuke Akutagawa (Rashomon, In a Grove, A Fool's Life).

Akutagawa studied composition under Qunihico Hashimoto and Akira Ifukube. Akutagawa was strongly influenced by Russian music, in particular Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitry Shostakovich and Dimtry Kabalevsky. Ifukube was also a very influential force on Akutagawa's musical idiom.

Along with the composers Ikuma Dan and Toshiro Mayuzumi, Akutagawa was a member of Sannin no kai (The Three).

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"). After he died, in 1989, the Akutagawa composition award was established.

Yasushi Akutagawa has appeared on Orchestral Works by Akira Ifukube (FOCD3245) , conducting Ballata Sinfonica (1943), Sinfonia Tapkaara (1954/1979) and Concerto No. 2 for Violin and Orchestra (1978). That same recording, featuring the New Symphony Orchestra, has also been re-issued under the catalog number FOCD-2545 .

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GEORGE COPELAND (1882 - 1971)

George Copeland was an American piano virtuoso. Copeland, an expert in French and Spanish piano music, was a close friend of Claude Debussy. Whenever Copeland appeared in concert, he was famous for always including at least one Debussy piece. Between the years 1933 and 1938, Copeland recorded a series of now famous recitals on the Victor label. This series included compositions by Erik Satie, Darius Milhaud, Enrique Granados, Manuel de Falla and, of course, Claude Debussy. Upon hearing these recordings, Debussy himself proclaimed "Mr. Copeland, I never thought to hear my music played as well as that in my lifetime."

While Copeland was living in Spain, he was sent a fan letter by Akira Ifukube. When Copeland responded, he asked to be sent a Japanese piano score. Instead of sending an existing composition, Ifukube decided to write an original piece; the end result of Ifukube's efforts was the Piano Suite (1933). This, Ifukube's maiden composition, was dedicated to Copeland.

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KEITH EMERSON (1944 - )

Keith Emerson is a British keyboard player and composer. Formerly a member of The T-Bones, V.I.P.s and as backing band to P.P. Arnold (which evolved into The Nice), he went on to start Emerson Lake and Palmer (ELP), one of the first supergroups, in 1970. Following the first breakup of ELP circa 1979, Emerson went on to modest success with other bands including Emerson, Lake & Powell, 3 and subsequent ELP reunions during the early 90's. He reunited The Nice in 2002 to go on tour and currently tours (through 2005) with The Keith Emerson Band.

He is known for his technical virtuosity and for his live antics, including using knives to wedge down specific keys of his Hammond organ during solos, playing the organ upside down while having it lie over him and employing a special rig to rotate his piano end-over-end while he's "playing" it (purely theatrical, since acoustic pianos cannot function when turned upside down in this manner). Along with contemporaries Richard Wright of Pink Floyd, Tony Banks of Genesis, and Rick Wakeman of Yes, Emerson is widely regarded as one of the top keyboard players of the progressive rock era, and was arguably the most technically accomplished of the lot.

Emerson has provided music for a number of films since 1980, including Dario Argento's Inferno and World of Horror, the 1981 thriller Nighthawks and Godzilla: Final Wars. He also was the composer for the short-lived 1994 animated television series Iron Man.

Besides creating the bulk of the original score for Godzilla: Final Wars, Emerson also performed synthesizer versions of some of Ifukube's Godzilla music on the Godzilla: Final Wars (VICP-62936) soundtrack album.

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MANFRED GURLITT (1890 - 1972)

Born in Berlin, Manfred Gurlitt was German composer, conductor, pianist and playwright. Gurlitt studied composition under Englebert Humperdinck.

Perhaps Gurlitt's most famous compostion is Soldaten (Soldiers), an opera in three acts. Composed in the late 1920's, Soldaten was a musical criticism of the officer class in Germany; the message of the opera did not rest well with the Nazis who were steadily becoming more powerful at the time. As a result, Gurlitt was stripped of his German citizenship and he fled to Japan where he married and spent the
rest of his life. Gurlitt died in Tokyo.

As a burgeoning composer, Akira Ifukube befriended Manfred Gurlitt after he arrived in Japan. Gurlitt had performed Ifukube's Piano Suite (1933) as a soloist on numerous occasions. In 1942, Gurlitt conducted the premiere performance of Ifukube's Symphony Concertante for Piano and Orchestra in Tokyo.

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FUMIO HAYASAKA (1914 - 1955)

Fumio Hayasaka was a composer of "Japanese nationalistic" music, but probably most famous for scoring several Akira Kurosawa films. Like Akira Ifukube, Hayasaka grew up on the island of Hokkaido and was a self-taught musician. He began his musical career as a church organist and eventually began composing original pieces. In 1936, his Prelude to Two Hymns won an NHK radio competition.

Some of the films Hayasaka scored for Akira Kurosawa are Stray Dog (1949), Rashomon (1950) and The Seven Samurai (1954). All together, Hayasaka composed about 40 film scores during his short but celebrated career. Hayasaka was also the musical mentor for Masaru Sato (another Kurosawa regular) and Toru Takemitsu.

Often in ill health during his life, Hayasaka finally succumbed to tuberculosis in 1955 at the age of 41.

In 1932, Hayasaka founded the Shin Ongaku Renmei (New Music League) with his friends Akira Ifukube and Atsushi Miura. This group sought to introduce modern western compositions into Japan as well as promote Japanese nationalistic music. In 1934, Shin Ongaku Renmei held a large-scale contemporary music festival in Sapporo and performed the works of several composers such as Stravinsky and Ravel.

After the Second World War, it was Hayasaka who convinced Ifukube to move to Tokyo to become a film composer. Hayasaka personally recommended Ifukube to Toho; Ifukube was hired and went on to create some of the most famous films scores in history with that studio.

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Jun'ichi Hirokami was born in Tokyo. He began his musical studies while still in grammar school. In 1983, he graduated from the Tokyo College of Music where he studied conducting, piano, viola and musicology. His international career started with a sensational first place in the first International Kondrashin Conducting Competition in Amsterdam, the jury of which included Bernard Haitink and Vladimir Ashkenazy; Hirokami was chosen immediately and unanimously as the winner. Ashkenazy engaged him without further ado as conductor on his Japanese tour in 1985 and also recommended Hirokami as a conductor at a concert with the French National Orchestra where Ashkenazy himself was the soloist. In recent years, Hirokami has succeeded in making his debut as guest conductor with a number of the world's leading orchestras including the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Malmö Symphony Orchestra.

Jun'ichi Hirokami was the principle conductor on the fist 5 editions of the Artistry of Akira Ifukube series on King Records. Those recordings featured the Japan Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. Hirokami has also appeared on Sweden's prestigious BIS label, conducting a fine performance of Ifukube's 1943 orchestral work, Ballata Sinfonica. That recording features the Malmö Symphony Orchestra from southern Sweden.

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Tetsuji Honna is an accomplished Japanese conductor. He has won many awards for his craft, including the 2nd prize at the Tokyo International Conductors' Competition in 1985. In 1991, he took 1st prize and the Bartók Prize at the Hungarian Television Conductors' Competition in Budapest.

Honna has conducted numerous orchestras such as the Hungarian State Philharmonic, the Slovenian Philharmonic, the Zagreb Philharmonic, the Brno State Philharmonic Orchestra, the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg. In 1997, he made his debuts with the Philharmonia Orchestra and conducted the Netherlands Philharmonic in Amsterdam, a concert which was followed by immediate reinvitations for 1999 and 2000. During the 2003 season, Honna appeared on the podium of Tbilisi Symphony and also conducted works by Shostakovich and Mozart with the Slovenian Philharmonic in Ljubljana.

Since 2001 he has been Music Adviser and Conductor of the Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra. In October 2004, he led this orchestra with great success on a tour of Japan which included performances in Tokyo and Osaka.

In Japan, Honna was appointed permanent conductor of the Osaka Symphony Orchestra (1995–2001) and Principal Conductor of the Japan Chamber Orchestra (1993–1997) which plays mainly 20th century music. From 1998 to 2001, Honna was Permanent Guest Conductor of the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra. Recently, he was appointed the position of Music Director of the Orchestra Nipponica which was founded in 2003.

Tetsuji Honna is the featured conductor on volumes 6, 7 , 8 and 9 of King Records' Artistry of Akira Ifukube series.

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BAKU ISHII (1886-1962)

Baku Ishii was a pioneer of Japanese modern dance. He spent five years at the Teikoku Theater (Teigeki), first as a violinist, and then moved to the opera section, and eventually found his way into the discipline of dance. He learned ballet under G.V. Rosi from 1913 to 1915. Ishii left the Teigeki because of difficulties with Rosi. Resonant with the rise of the new wave of theater and literature, Ishii chose to pursue modern dance rather than ballet. With the collaboration of Kosaku Yamada, a modern composer, Ishii’s dance research was strongly influenced by the Eurhythmics of Jacques Dalcroze, and he began to present “dance poems.” He then joined the Asakusa Opera where Ishii and his partner, Konami, visited Europe from 1922 to 1925. During this time, Ishii and his partner performed several of his original pieces in Berlin and other European cities. In 1925 he toured the United States, performing in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and other cities. After his return to Japan, Ishii greatly influenced the development of modern dance in his native country. In 1926 he opened his dance studio and then, in 1930, his school. Ishii was responsible for training many modern dancers in Japan. Ishii was also the father of acclaimed the acclaimed Japanse composer (and former student of Akira Ifukube), Maki Ishii.

During the late 1940's and 1950's, Akira Ifukube was drawn to writing ballet music. Ifukube collaborated with many of the best Japanese dancers of the day, including Baku Ishii, who performed in many of Ifukube's ballets.

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The koto virtuoso Keiko Nosaka graduated from the Japanese Music Department of the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. She gave her first recital in 1965, and joined Nihon Ongaku Shûdan (Pro Musica Nipponia) that same year, continuing as an active member for the following seventeen years. She developed a new 20-string koto in 1969, playing it for the first time in her second recital, for which she was awarded the Arts Festival Encouragement Award.

In 1973, Nosaka perfomed at the Menuhin Festival in Switzerland which eventually led to a series of additional recitals in the rest of Europe and in the United States. In 1983, she gave up all of her official teaching posts at universities and other institutions; additionally, she suspended her performing activities for three years. In 1986, Nosaka began performing again and, in 1991, played her newly developed 25-string koto for the first time. She began studies with Akira Ifukube in 1994, performing his music on a large number of recordings as well as in live concert events.

Some notable Ifukube/Nosaka collaborations can be found on the following recordings:

Pipa Xing (28CM-558) (1999)

Ballata Sinfonica - Keiko Nosaka Recital (28CM-651) (2001)

The Artistry of Akira Ifukube, Volume 6 - (KICC439) (2003)

On the latter recording, Nosaka is the featured soloist for Eclogue symphonique pour koto à vingt cordes et orchestre (1982).

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RYUSUKE NUMAJIRI (1964 - )

Principal Conductor of Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, April 1999 - Principal Guest conductor of Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra, April 2001 - Ryusuke Numajiri won the 40th Besançon International Conducting Competition (1990), an honor that catapulted him to the forefront of the classical music world.

Born in Tokyo, Ryusuke Numajiri studied the piano and conducting at the prestigious Toho Gakuen School of Music. His teachers included, amongst others, Seiji Ozawa and Tadaaki Otaka. While still a student, and until his departure to study with Hans-Martin Rabenstein at the Berlin University of Fine Arts and Music, Numajiri acted as assistant to Seiji Ozawa at the New Japan Philharmonic.

Numajiri's international performances have gained the attention of audiences, critics and orchestras alike. He has thus far conducted the Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse, Odense Byorkester (Denmark), Northern Sinfonia (England), Staadtskapelle Weimar, Augsburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre Chambre de Paris, Northern Sinfonia and the Haifa Symphony Orchestra (Israel). In 1998, at the invitation of Elena Rostropovich, Numajiri led the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano "Guiseppe Verdi" in performances at the Evian Festival. Most recently in his international activities, after a successful debut engagement with the London Symphony Orchestra in October 1998, he was immediately re-engaged for another performance in January 1999; during his second engagement, EMI recorded his performance of Gubaidulina’s Concerto for Cello, 2 Percussion and Chorus with Mstislav Rostropovich as the soloist.

In Japan, as of April 1999, Numajiri has been Principal Conductor of the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and is a popular guest conductor with the other major Japanese orchestras.

Rysuke Numajiri appears on Naxos's critically acclaimed Japanese Orchestral Favourites (8.555071) recording, conducting Akira Ifukube's Japanese Rhapsody. That recording features the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra.

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NAOTO OTOMO (1958 - )

Naoto Otomo was born in Tokyo and began his music training on the piano at the age of four. He attended Tokyo's Toho Gakuen High School where his musical interests led him to take up conducting. Recognized for his remarkable talents, Otomo was subsequently accepted for university studies at the the affiliated Toho Gakuen School of Music, one of the most prestigious music institutions in Japan. There, he studied under leading Japanese conductors including Seiji Ozawa, Kazuyoshi Akiyama and Tadaaki Otaka.

At the age of 21, Otomo was made Assistant Conductor of the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the youngest person to ever assume that post. He made his debut with that ensemble in 1979 with a critically acclaimed performance of Maurice Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé. Soon after, he went to the United States for further study at Tanglewood, working with such eminent conductors as Leonard Bernstein, and André Previn.

Otomo has conducted many of the top orchestras in Japan including the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra and the Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra.

Naoto Otomo has appeared as a conductor on a handful of Akira Ifukube recordings, including the rare KUSHIRO MARSHLAND (FOCD9057) and The Artistry of Akira Ifukube, Volume 5 (KICC179). On that recording, Otomo directs the Japan Philharmonic through a world-premiere recording of Ifukube's Symphony Concertante for Piano and Orchestra (1941).

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MASARU SATO (1928 - 1999)

Like Akira Ifukube, Masaru Sato was born in Hokkaido. The youngest of six brothers, Sato knew from an early age he
wanted to be a composer. Sato studied under Fumio Hayasaka and as a result became good friends with Akira Kurosawa.
(Hayasaka was Kurosawa's principal composer.) After Hayasaka's untimely death in 1955, Sato stepped up to become
Kurosawa's main composer.

Some of the films Sato scored for Kurosawa are The Hidden Fortress (1958), Yojimbo (1961) Sanjuro (1962) and Akahige (Red Beard) (1965).

Sato was also a composer of music for the Godzilla series. He scored the second Godzilla movie (Godzilla Raids Again) in 1955 as well as Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster (1966), Son of Godzilla (1967) and Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974). Sato's Godzilla music was quite different from Ifukube's; indeed, Sato took a more light-hearted, almost jazz-like approach to scoring those films.

Sato produced over 300 film scores during his distinguished career, but never wrote seperate pieces for the concert hall. He was purely a film composer.

Masaru Sato appears on Godzilla: Symphonic Concert (SLCS-5029), a live recording in which he conducts several selections of Ifukube's daikaiju music, including the three Symphonic Fantasias. This recording features the Osaka Sinfonica performing at the Itama Bunka hall.

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FABIEN SEVITZKY (1891 - 1967)

Fabien Sevitzky was a Russian born conductor and nephew of Sergei Koussevitsky. During the early 1930's, Sevitzky was the principle conductor of the Boston People's Symphony Orchestra and of the Philadelphia Sinfonietta. In 1936, Sevitzky appeared as a guest conductor with the Indianapolis Symphony which led him to become that orchestra's music director the following year. Sevitzky held the post of chief conductor with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra until 1955.

Under Sevitzky's baton, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra rose to great international prominence. The orchestra was well known for touring within the United States, perfoming on radio broadcasts and recording on major record lables, often with some of the world's finest soloists.

During his teenage years, Akira Ifukube corresponded regularly with Maestro Sevitzky. A friendship developed as a result and this led Sevitzky to conduct the world premiere of Japanese Rhapsody in 1936 with the Boston People's Symphony Orchestra in Boston. In 1954, Sevitzky conducted the world premiere of Ifukube's Sinfonia Tapkaara with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra in Indianapolis.

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ALEXANDER TCHEREPNIN (1899 - 1977)

Alexander Nikolayevich Tcherepnin was a Russian composer and pianist. His father, Nikolay Tcherepnin, and his son, Ivan Tcherepnin, were also composers. His mother was a niece of Alexandre Benois.

His early works were fairly original and some of his pieces have enduring popularity. His output includes four symphonies, six piano concertos, and a large amount of solo piano music. His first symphony is remarkable for including the first symphonic movement ever written completely for unpitched percussion. Another symphony, left incomplete at his death, would have been for percussion alone. Tcherepnin invented his own harmonic language by combining minor and major hexachords, pentatonic scales, old Russian modal tunes and Georgian harmonies.

He was born in St Petersburg, Russia. After the 1917 Russian Revolution, he defected and lived in France and the United States. He visited the Far East between 1934 and 1937. He promoted composers in Japan (Akira Ifukube and others) and China. He married a Chinese pianist, Lee Hsien Ming, while in China.

During World War II, he lived in France. In 1948, he went to the United States, and in 1958, he acquired United States citizenship. He taught at DePaul University in Chicago, where the Chicago Symphony Orchestra premiered his second symphony with Rafael Kubelik conducting. His students there included Gloria Coates and John Downey. He died in Paris

Tcherepnin played a major role in bringing Akira Ifukube to international fame. In 1935, Tcherepnin promoted a contest in Paris for young Japanese composers. Ifukube, a competitor in this contest, submitted his Japanese Rhapsody and unanimously took the first prize. As a result, in 1936, Tcherepnin visited Japan and taught composition to Ifukube for a brief period in Yokohama.

Through Tcherepnin's sponsorship, Ifukube's Piano Suite (1933) was published by Universal and Schirmer and subsequently selected for the Venice International Contemporary Music Festival in 1938. Tcherepnin perfomed Piano Suite as a soloist on numerous occasions in various international venues.

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DMITRY YABLONSKY (1962 - )

Dmitry Yablonsky, a Russian conductor and cellist, was born into a family of musicians in Moscow. His mother, Oxana Yablonskaya is an internationally renowned pianist and professor at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. His father is a solo oboist in the Radio and Television Orchestra in Moscow. At the age of six, young Dmitry was accepted into the Moscow Central Music School for gifted children and, at the age of 9, he gave his orchestral debut playing Haydn's Concerto in C Major for violoncello.

As conductor, Yablonsky has performed in the famous halls of the Concertgebouw, Carnegie Hall, Moscow Conservatory Great Hall, St.Petersburg Philharmonic, Taiwan National Hall and La Scala among others. As a cellist, he has performed with H.Iwaki, V.Fedoseev, D.Kitayenko and K.Penderecki. Dmitry Yablonsky has recorded more then 20 albums for labels like Naxos-Marco Polo, Erato, Conoisseur Soc, EMS, Discover, Sonora, Bel Air Music and Chandos. His recording with Repin and Berezovsky of the Tchaikovsky Trio and Schostakovich Trio for the Erato label, has won numerous prizes.

Dmirty Yablonsky appears as a conductor on Akira Ifukube: Sinfonia Tapkaara (8.557587) on the Naxos label. That recording features the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra.

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Copyright 2008 Erik Homenick. All rights reserved.