Born in Hiratsuka in Kanagawa Prefecture in 1932; Akira Yuyama is a Japanese composer. He studied composition with Tomojiro Ikenouchi at the Tokyo University of the Arts, graduating in 1955. While still a student he was honoured at the music competition of NHK and the Mainichi Shimbun, today’s Japan Music Competition: in 1953 with a second prize for a small violin sonata and in 1954 with a third prize for a string quartet. For the choral suite “Kotan no Uta” he received the Grand Prize of the Arts Festival. His output comprises instrumental and choral music, piano pieces and teaching works for children as well as numerous children’s songs, among them “Amefuri Kuma no Ko”. He was president of the Japan Children’s Song Association and chaired a board of the Japanese copyright society JASRAC. On the Cybele album Rolf Hildebrand: Marimba (1995) he is represented with his “Divertimento for Marimba and Alto Saxophone”, completed in 1968, a rondo in variation form, played by Rolf Hildebrand and the saxophonist Hugo Read.
Akira Yuyama
Composer
