Toshio Hosokawa, who was born in Hiroshima in 1955, came to Germany in 1976, where he studied composition with Isang Yun and Klaus Huber. His reputation in the international contemporary music scene grew rapidly and he received numerous commissions. He achieved resounding success in 2001 with the premiere of the oratorio Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima. A series of large orchestral works followed, including Circulating Ocean (Vienna Philharmonic, Salzburg Festival 2005) and Woven Dreams (Cleveland Orchestra, Lucerne Festival 2010). In 2013, Toshio Hosokawa was a guest in Salzburg with the world premiere of Klage for soprano and orchestra based on a poem by Georg Trakl. He has also been successively composing the series Voyages for solo instrument and ensemble. Voyage X remarkably combines the Japanese shakuhachi bamboo flute and western instruments. Toshio Hosokawa has been artistic director of the Takefu International Music Festival in Fukui since 2001 and visiting professor at the Tokyo College of Music since 2004. His most recent works include the violin concerto Genesis, which was premiered by the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra under Kent Nagano in the Elbphilharmonie in May this year. Toshio Hosokawa has received numerous awards, including first prize in the composition competition for the centenary of the Berlin Philharmonic, the Young Generation Composition Prize in Europe, the Kyoto Music Prize and the Rheingau Music Prize. Toshio Hosokawa lives in Yokohama.
Statements on the conferrals
“With his compositions, Hosokawa opens up spaces and connects people all over the world. The unique sound of his music transcends and turns the concert hall into a place of global encounter,” wrote the jury. “In doing so, he succeeds in combining culturally specific ways of listening to music into an extraordinary work of sound art, while preserving his own traditions.”
