Toshio Hosokawa (細川 俊夫, Hosokawa Toshio; born October 23, 1955) is a Japanese composer who writes modern classical music. He studied in Germany but later returned to Japan, where he developed a unique style influenced by traditional Japanese music and culture. He has written operas, including the oratorio Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima, and created instrumental music.

He co-founded and directed a Japanese festival for contemporary music. He has also been a composer in residence at international festivals such as the Venice Biennale, Lucerne Festival, Warsaw Autumn, and Rheingau Musik Festival. His operas were first performed at the Munich Biennale and La Monnaie, among other venues.

Hosokawa currently lives in Nagano, Japan, and Mainz, Germany.

Career

Hosokawa was born in Hiroshima on October 23, 1955. At age 15, he heard a radio broadcast of Tōru Takemitsu's November Steps, which inspired him to pursue music as a career. He first studied piano and composition in Tokyo. From 1976, he studied with Yun Isang at the Berlin University of the Arts. Between 1983 and 1986, he studied with Klaus Huber and Brian Ferneyhough at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg. In 1980, he participated in the Darmstädter Ferienkurse, where he performed his own compositions. He began teaching there regularly in 1990. Over time, he became well-known internationally and received many commissions to create music.

After receiving a recommendation from Huber, he returned to Japan, where he developed a style influenced by traditional Japanese music. In 1989, he co-founded the Akiyoshidai International Contemporary Music Seminar and Festival in Yamaguchi and led it until 1998. From 1998 to 2007, he was Composer-in-Residence at the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. He also directed the Japanese Takefu International Music Festival in Fukui starting in 2001. These festivals bring together musicians from Asian and Western traditions for concerts and discussions. In 2004, he became a guest professor at the Tokyo College of Music. He was a member of the Academy of Arts, Berlin, beginning in 2001. His work was shaped by Japanese traditions like calligraphy, court music, and Noh theatre. He described his music as expressing "a beauty that grows from transience." He said: "We hear each note and also notice how the notes are created and fade: a sound world that is always changing."

Hosokawa's first opera, Vision of Lear, based on Shakespeare's play, premiered at the Munich Biennale in 1998. It includes elements of traditional Japanese Noh theatre. His second opera, Hanjo, premiered at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 2004 and was staged by choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. It was also performed in Bielefeld, Hamburg, Lisbon, Lyon, Milan, and Tokyo. Woven Dreams, an orchestral work, won the fifth Roche Commission. It was first performed by the Cleveland Orchestra at the Lucerne Festival in 2010. His third opera, Matsukaze, inspired by Noh theatre, premiered at La Monnaie in Brussels in 2011 and was later performed in Berlin, Luxembourg, and Warsaw. His works have been performed by conductors such as Kazushi Ono, Kent Nagano, Simon Rattle, Alexander Liebreich, and Robin Ticciati. Many of his compositions are now part of the modern music repertoire.

In 2006–2007 and 2008–2009, Hosokawa conducted research at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin. He was a composer-in-residence at festivals such as the Venice Biennale (1995 and 2001), the Lucerne Festival (2000), musica viva in Munich (2001), Musica nova in Helsinki (2003), and the Warsaw Autumn (2005 and 2007). From 2012 to 2015, he directed the Suntory Hall International Program for Music Composition.

In 2008, Hosokawa was invited by Walter Fink to be the 18th composer featured in the Rheingau Musik Festival's annual Komponistenporträt. A concert of chamber music by the Arditti Quartet and Mayumi Miyata (Shō) included works like Silent Flowers and Blossoming, which gave nature a voice. His oratorio Voiceless Voice, written for Hiroshima, was performed at Eberbach Abbey by the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne and the WDR Rundfunkchor Köln, conducted by Rupert Huber, with soloist Gerhild Romberger. The oratorio was originally created in 1989 as a tribute to the victims of the 1945 Hiroshima bombing but was expanded in 2001 to address environmental issues. It includes a poem Heimkehr by Paul Celan and a haiku by Matsuo Bashō. The music uses wind sounds, tone clusters, and percussion that mimic natural sounds, while the choral writing reflects European traditions. In 2010, he composed a chamber music piece, Für Walter (For Walter), for soprano saxophone and piano, with optional percussion, to honor his friend Walter Fink. The piece premiered at a concert celebrating Fink's 80th birthday.

Awards

Hosokawa has been honored with many awards, including:

• 1982: First prize in a composition competition celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Berliner Philharmoniker
• 1982: Irino Prize [ de ] for young composers
• 1984: Arion-Musikpreis
• 1985: Composition prize for young composers in Europe
• 1988: Kyoto Music Prize
• 1998: Rheingau Musik Preis
• 1998: Duisburger Musikpreis
• 2001: musica viva-Preis from ARD and BMW
• 2007: Suntory Music Award
• 2008: Fifth Roche commission
• 2021: Goethe Medal
• 2024: BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award

Compositions

IRCAM has a complete list of Hosokawa's compositions, as well as Schott Music, and several works are stored in the German National Library:

• Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima (1989/2001) for soloists, narrators, chorus, tape (optional), and orchestra. Inspired by Matsuo Bashō, Paul Celan, and the film Genbaku no Ko
• Ferne Landschaft I (1987)
• Ferne Landschaft II (1996)
• Ferne Landschaft III – Seascapes of Fukuyama (1996)
• Memory of the Sea – Hiroshima Symphony (1998)
• Seascapes – Daybreak (1998)
• Seascapes – Oita (1998)
• Circulating Ocean (2005)
• Wind from the Ocean (2006)
• Skyscape (2006–07)
• Danses imaginaires (2007)
• Woven Dreams (2009–10)
• Blossoming II (2011)
• Singing Garden in Venice for baroque orchestra (2011)
• Meditation – to the Victims of Tsunami 3.11 (2012)
• Uzu (2019)
• Sakura (2021)

• Voyage series:
• Voyage I for violin and ensemble (1997)
• Voyage II for bassoon and ensemble (1997)
• Voyage III for trombone and ensemble (1997)
• Voyage IV – Extasis for accordion and ensemble (2000)
• Voyage V for flute and chamber orchestra (2001)
• Voyage VI for viola and strings (2002)
• Voyage VII for trumpet and strings with percussion (2005)
• Voyage VIII for tuba and ensemble (2006)
• Voyage IX – Awakening for guitar and strings with percussion (2007)
• Voyage X for shakuhachi and ensemble (2009)

• Flute Concerto Per Sonare (1988)
• Landscape III for violin and orchestra (1993)
• In die Tiefe der Zeit for cello, accordion, and strings (1994)
• Cello Concerto (1997)
• Saxophone Concerto (1998)
• Piano Concerto Ans Meer (1999)
• Clarinet Concerto Metamorphosis (2000)
• Percussion Concerto Tabi-bito (2000)
• Harp Concerto Re-turning (2001)
• Lotus under the Moonlight (Hommage à Mozart) for piano and orchestra (2006)
• Shō Concerto Cloud and Light (2008)
• Chant for cello and orchestra (2009)
• Horn Concerto Moment of Blossoming (2010)
• Autumn Wind for shakuhachi and orchestra (2011)
• Trumpet Concerto Im Nebel (2013)
• Sublimation for cello and orchestra (2016)
• Sorrow River for recorder and strings (2016)
• Violin Concerto Genesis (2020)
• Ceremony for flute and orchestra (2021–2022)

• String Quartet No. 2 Urbilder (1980)
• Landscape I for string quartet (1992)
• Landscape IV for string quintet (1993)
• Duo for violin and cello (1998)
• Silent Flowers for string quartet (1998)
• Blossoming for string quartet (2007)
• Kalligraphie for string quartet (2007)
• Distant Voices for string quartet (2013)
• Weaving Song for string quartet (2020)
• Dan-sô for piano trio (1984)
• Fragments II for alto flute and string quartet (1989)
• Birds Fragments III for sho and bass flute (1990)
• Landscape II for harp and string quartet (1992)
• Vertical Time Study I for clarinet, cello, and piano (1992)
• Landscape V for shō and string quartet (1993)
• Vertical Time Study II for tenor saxophone, piano, and percussion (1993–94)
• Memory for piano trio (1996)
• Deep Silence (2002) for shō and accordion in Gagaku style
• Stunden-Blumen (Toki no Hana) for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano (2008)
• Für Walter for soprano saxophone, piano, and percussion (optional) (2010)
• Piano Trio (2013)
• Ancient Voices – In memory of Wolfgang Schulz for wind quintet (2013)
• Water of Lethe for piano quartet (2016)

• Sen series:
• Sen I for flute (1986)
• Sen II for cello (1986)
• Sen III for sangen (1988)
• Sen IV for organ (1990)
• Sen V for accordion (1992)

Literature

• Walter-Wolfgang Sparrer: Toshio Hosokawa. In Komponisten der Gegenwart. Edited by Text + Kritik, Munich. Pages 1992 and following.
• Toshio Hosokawa, Walter-Wolfgang Sparrer: Stille und Klang, Schatten und Licht. Gespräche. Published by Wolke-Verlag, Hofheim, 2012. ISBN 978-3-936000-47-4.
• Luciana Galliano (editor): Lotus. La Musica di Toshio Hosokawa. Published by Auditorium Edizioni, Milano, 2013. ISBN 978-88-86784-84-9.
• Reinhart Meyer-Kalkus: Auskomponierte Stimmen. Toshio Hosokawas Vokalkompositionen. In Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, 169.2008, Issue 1, pages 62–65.
• Basil Rogger (editor): Roche Commissions Toshio Hosokawa, on behalf of Roche, the Carnegie Hall New York, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Lucerne Festival, Luzern, 2010. Program book in English and German.
• Sparrer: Toshio Hosokawas Musik in ihrem Verhältnis zu japanischen Tradition. In: Jörn Peter Hiekel (editor): Ins Offene? Neue Musik und Natur. Published by Darmstädter Beiträge zur Neuen Musik, Schott, Mainz, 2014, pages 132–157.