Komponist
Saruya Toshiro
Saruya Toshiro
TOSHIRO SARUYA was born in 1960 in Tokyo. After studying the master course in law at Keio University in Tokyo, he went to the United States and studied composition and conducting at the Juilliard School of Music where he received his Master's Degree as an honorary scholarship student.
He also studied with Hans Werner Henze and Oliver Knussen at the Tanglewood Music Festival as a composition fellow where he was awarded the Koussevitzky Music Foundation Fellowship in 1988.
In 1992, SARUYA participated in the Third Munich Biennale (International Festival for New Music Theater) under the artistic direction of Hans Werner Henze and received the BMW Theater Prize.
He was a young composer out of the unknown in Japan until his work for string orchestra, "Fiber of the Breath", was given the world premiere at the concert introducing Henze's "Three Spiritual Concertos" perfomed by Oliver Knussen and the NHK Symphony Orchestra in 1992 and in 1993, "Fiber of the Breath" brought him the 3rd Idemitsu Music Award and the 3rd Akutagawa Award for Music Composition and he won the commission from the Suntory Music Foundation.
"Fiber of the Breath" was given the European premiere by the Orchester der Beethovenhalle Bonn in 1994. Also in 1994, "Projection Orbit", commissioned by Hiroyuki Iwaki, was premiered and recorded by the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa under the baton of the commissioner.
The CD including "Projection Orbit" was released by the Deutsche Grammphon and it won the 1995 Record Academy Award (at the Japanese works section).
In 1995, he received the 43rd Otaka Prize for his "Fractal Vision" written for the Kyoto Symphony Orchestra. The work commissioned by Suntory Music Foundation, "Mutual Recognition" was premiered by Kazuhiko Komatsu and the New Japan Philharmonic at Suntory Hall in 1995.
The recent works include "The Tale of Beatrix Potter" for narration, cello and piano commissioned by the Saito Kinen Festival Matsumoto (1996), "String Quartet" commissioned by New Arts String Quartet (1996), "Hi-kui-dori" commissioned by the Tokyo Philharmonic Chorus (1997), "Toyo-no-uta-akari" for the Japanese traditional instruments commissioned by the National Theater, Tokyo (1997) and "Rinsho" premiered by the Tokyo International Music Ensemble at the ULTIMA Oslo Contemporary Music Festival (1997).
