Toshi Ichiyanagi
Biography
Toshi Ichiyanagi (一柳 慧 Ichiyanagi Toshi, born 4 February 1933) is a Japanese composer and pianist. Ichiyanagi was born in Kobe. He studied with Tomojirō Ikenouchi, Kishio Hirao [fr; ja], and John Cage. One of his most notable works is the 1960 composition Kaiki, which combined Japanese instruments, shō and koto, and western instruments, harmonica and saxophone. Another work, Distance (1961), required the performers to play from a distance of three meters from their instruments. Anima 7 (1964) stated that chosen action should be performed "as slowly as possible". Ichiyanagi was married to Yoko Ono from 1956 to 1963. Ichiyanagi is the recipient of the 33rd Suntory Music Award (2001) and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts John Cage Award (2018). He has been honored with Japan's Order of Culture. Description above from the Wikipedia article Toshi Ichiyanagi, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Known For & Full Filmography2 Titles
Movie - 1979, 2h 15m • as Self
On March 24, 1979, The Kitchen presented a two-part program dedicated to the work of various Fluxus artists. The programming began with the premiere of Alison Knowles’s “Natural Assemblages and the True Crow.” For the piece, Knowles engaged in a dialogue with her own taped voice, which read aloud selections from various natural history books. Simultaneously, violinist Michael Goldstein provided an improvised score while dancer Jessie Higgins executed a number of one-movement phrases by following instructions on index cards. The second part of the night’s programming consisted of forty rapid performances—most sixty seconds or less—by various Fluxus members, including Yoko Ono, George Brecht, La Monte Young, and Nam June Paik. Ken Friedman and Larry Miller coordinated this portion of the event.
Movie - 2017, 2h 15m • Main Cast Role
A five-part documentary chronicling Toshio Matsumoto, the legendary filmmaker known as a pioneer of experimental cinema in Japan and also active as a film theorist, who exerted a profound influence on innovative film expression from the 1950s onward. Directed by filmmaker and critic Takefumi Tsutsui—himself both a filmmaker and critic like Matsumoto—the project was filmed over the course of ten years. Interweaving excerpts from Matsumoto’s works with an extensive series of interviews with collaborators and critics, the documentary retraces, through the figure of Matsumoto, the tumultuous decades from the 1950s to the 2000s across five parts, totaling 700 minutes.