1. Toshi Ichiyanagi was a Japanese avant-garde composer and pianist.
13 Facts About Toshi Ichiyanagi
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One of the leading composers in Japan during the postwar era, Ichiyanagi worked in a range of genres, composing Western-style operas and orchestral and chamber works, as well as compositions using traditional Japanese instruments.
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Toshi Ichiyanagi is known for incorporating avant-garde techniques into his works, such as chance music, extended technique, and nontraditional scoring.
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Toshi Ichiyanagi was married to artist Yoko Ono from 1956 to 1962.
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Toshi Ichiyanagi studied composition with Tomojiro Ikenouchi, Kishio Hirao, and John Cage.
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From 1954 to 1960, Toshi Ichiyanagi resided in New York City, where he studied at the Juilliard School and The New School for Social Research.
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Toshi Ichiyanagi was married to Yoko Ono from 1956 to 1962.
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In 1963, Toshi Ichiyanagi co-founded an avant-garde music collective called New Direction along with fellow composers Takehisa Kosugi, Yuji Takahashi, and Kenji Kobayashi, and others.
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The group disbanded in the late 1960s when most of its members relocated to New York, while Toshi Ichiyanagi remained in Japan.
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Toshi Ichiyanagi was the recipient of the 33rd Suntory Music Award and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts John Cage Award.
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Toshi Ichiyanagi has been honored with Japan's Order of Culture.
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Toshi Ichiyanagi's father, Shinji, was a cellist, while his mother, Mitsuko, gave piano lessons in their home and was her son's first piano teacher.
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Toshi Ichiyanagi died in Tokyo on 7 October 2022, at the age of 89.