Takashi Yoshimatsu
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Takashi Yoshimatsu (born March 18, 1953) is a contemporary Japanese composer of classical music.
Takashi Yoshimatsu was born in Tokyo, Japan, and like Toru Takemitsu, the composer generally considered to be Japan's greatest in the western classical style, did not receive formal musical training while growing up. He left the faculty of technology of Keio University in 1972, and joined an amateur band named NOA as a keyboard player, emulating the music of Pink Floyd. He became interested in the jazz and progressive rock scenes, particularly in the possibilities being explored through electronic music.
He was a fan of the Walker Brothers and the Ventures when he was 13, but symphonies of Beethoven and Tchaikovsky fascinated him when he was 14. Since then he composed a number of pieces before making his name with the serialist 'Threnody for Toki' in 1981. Soon afterwards, he became disenchanted with atonal music, and began to compose in a free neo-romantic style with strong influences from jazz, rock and Japanese classical music, underscoring his reputation with his 1985 guitar concerto. As of 2004, Yoshimatsu has presented five symphonies, five concertos (one each for piano, cello, guitar, trombone and saxophone), a number of sonatas, and various shorter pieces for ensembles of various sizes. His 'Atom Hearts Club Suites' for string orchestra explicitly pay homage to the Beatles, Pink Floyd and Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
Yoshimatsu's supporters enjoy his easy, tuneful style and sense of the capacities of different instruments, although critics complain that his work is simply a post-modern jumble with little coherent theme.
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