Toshiro Mayuzumi

was a Japanese composer. He was known for his implementation of avant-garde instrumentation alongside traditional Japanese musical techniques. His works drew inspiration from a variety of sources ranging from jazz to Balinese music, and he was considered a pioneer in the realm of musique concrète and electronic music, being the first artist in his country to explore these techniques. Over the span of his career, he wrote symphonies, ballets, operas, and film scores. Mayuzumi was the first Japanese composer to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score, for the 1966 film The Bible: In the Beginning…. He was the recipient of an Otaka prize by the NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Purple Medal of Merit. John Huston called him a “modern Beethoven”. Biography Born in Yokohama, Mayuzumi was a student of Tomojirō Ikenouchi and Akira Ifukube at the Tokyo University of the Arts immediately following the Second World War, graduating in 1951. He then went to Europe where he attended the Paris Conservatoire national supérieur de musique, studying with Aubin and becoming familiar with the new developments of Olivier Messiaen and Pierre Boulez, as well as with the techniques of mus