Toshi Lchiyanagi, A Pioneering Japanese Avant-Garde Composer, Died At The Age Of 89.

Toshi Ichiyanagi, an avant-garde pianist and composer who studied with John Cage and went on to lead Japan’s advances in experimental modern music, has died. He was 89.

Ichiyanagi attended The Juilliard School in New York and emerged as a trailblazer, employing free-spirited compositional techniques that left much to chance, incorporating not only traditional Japanese elements and instruments, but also electronic music.

He was known for working with Jasper Johns and Merce Cunningham, as well as innovative Japanese artists like architect Kisho Kurokawa and poet-playwright Shuji Terayama, as well as Ono, with whom he was married for several years beginning in the mid-1950s.

“In my creation, I’ve tried to let various elements, which have often been considered separately as contrast and opposite in music, coexist and penetrate each other,” Ichiyanagi stated in an artist statement.

He was inspired and emboldened by Japanese traditional music, he said, because it was not preoccupied with the usual definitions of music as “temporal art,” or what he called “divisions,” such as relative and absolute, or new and old.

He claimed that modern music was more about “substantial space, in order to restore the spiritual richness that music provides.”

Among his well-known orchestral works is the turbulent and provocative “Berlin Renshi.” Renshi is a type of collaborative Japanese poetry that is more open-ended free verse than older forms such as “renku.”

Ichiyanagi founded the Tokyo International Music Ensemble — The New Tradition (TIME) in 1989, an orchestral group specialising in traditional instruments and “shomyo,” a Buddhist chanting style.

His music moved freely between influences and cultures, moving from minimalist avant-garde to Western opera.

Ichiyanagi performed his compositions at Carnegie Hall in New York and the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. He was also commissioned by Japan’s National Theater for several works.

He produced Concerto for marimba and orchestra in 2013, and Piano Concerto No. 6 in 2016, which Ichiyanagi performed solo at a Tokyo festival.

Ichiyanagi received numerous honours, including the Juilliard Alexander Gretchaninov Prize, the French Republic’s Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and the Japanese government’s Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, and Medal of Purple Ribbon.

Ichiyanagi, who was born in Kobe to a musical family, showed early promise as a composer. He won a major competition in Japan before moving to the United States as a teenager, when such moves were still uncommon in postwar Japan.

A private funeral with family is being held. A public ceremony in his honour is being planned by his son, according to Japanese media reports.

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