Akira Ifukube

AKIRA IFUKUBE originated from ancient lineage dating back to the seventh century. He resolved to pursue the study of composition at the age of 14, inspired by the music of Stravinsky, De Falla and Copland. He studied forestry at the Hokkaido Imperial University of Sapporo and self-educated himself as a composer. His breakthrough came in 1935, when his first orchestral work Japanese Rhapsody won the first prize at an international competition for young composers, unanimously awarded by a jury including Albert Roussel, Jacques Ibert, Arthur Honegger, Alexander Tansman and other famous creative artists. During Alexander Tcherepnin's visit to Japan, Ifukube studied the modern Western compositional manner and wrote his Piano Suite, received an honourable mention at the I.C.S.M. festival in Venice in 1938, and his Japanese Rhapsody was performed in Europe on a number of occasions in the late 1930s. After the war he settled in Tokyo, taught at the University of the Arts, then at the Tokyo College of Music, became its president, where he trained several generations of renowned Japanese composers. He also published a massive, 1,000-page book on orchestration, widely used among Japanese composers. Ifukube was recipient of the government-conferred Order of Culture and subsequently was decorated with the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Third Class.