A study of the catalogue of Taku Koji's works

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

My study concerns the career of Japanese pianist and composer, Taku Koji. Born into a famous Sakai sake-brewing family (his grandfather created the well-known brand 'sawakame'), Koji was exposed to traditional Japanese arts and music from early childhood. As a young man, after studying music composition in Paris, he taught and worked on developing dance music in a girls teacher-training school in Tokyo. He worked on creating piano accompaniment for female floor exercises in the up-coming Tokyo Olympic Games, in 1966. For him, music provided an essential support to physical motion, and much of his work was designed with dance and floor exercises in mind. The music he grew up listening to as a child, even traditional Japanese music, provided him with a yearning to explore a wide variety of music in later life, including jazz, and music for films. In my study, I explore the various strands of which comprise his highly creative output over the years.