born in May 5 1953 in a small sea side town located about 600km west of Tokyo in Japan as the first son of the Buddhist family that runs a shop selling buddhist altars and other ceremonial goods. His father was inscriber of buddhist memorial tablet. His first music study began with a portable organ when his mother sent him to a local catholic kindergarten at the age 5.
During the time of upper secondary school that is founded by a Shinto sect he studied harmony and counterpoint under guidance of a professor of Hiroshima University, Masaaki Hayakawa and later 1972 entered to the composition class of the department of music education at the same University. He was then the only student majoring composition. As soon as the composition study started, the professor who was also the conductor of the university symphony orchestra gave him his old French horn and placed him in the orchestra. 4 months later, he played the 4th horn part of Sibelius’ 2nd symphony in the annual public concert. He continued his composition study in Tokyo Music University where he encountered by chance electro-acoustic and computer music (There were no such subjects taught at that time). His first public appearance as composer in Tokyo 1976 was not with conventional musical piece but with huge interactive metallic sculpture on which lots of contact microphones were installed. It was exhibited at the men’s fashion floor in one of the largest department stores in the center of Tokyo and played thus by department shopping customers.
In Autumn 1977 He flew to Stockholm planning to participate as an assistant in a large environmental art project of E.A.T. by David Tudor and Fujiko Nakaya (Japanese artist who makes artificial fog sculpture) outside Stockholm archipelago. Unfortunately the project was cancelled due to financial difficulty. However he stayed and continued to pursue his postgraduate study at Electronic Music Studio by aid of the scholarship of Swedish Institute until 1981. At the same time he enrolled as guest student in the composition class at the Royal Academy of Music where he had opportunities to meet several internationally active and well known composers such as Xenakis, Berio, Ferneihough, Stockhausen among others who were then invited to the composition class as teacher in residence. During his stay in Stockholm he traveled intensively around Europe and attended several courses in different institutes such as STEIM in Amsterdam, IRCAM in Paris and Hochshule der Kunst in Berlin. 1979 he won the second price at the International Tape Music Competition in New York and had a chance to have a concert with John Cage and other American composers in New York city.
1981 Spring just after participation in John Cage’s composition class held at IRCAM in Paris he flew back to Tokyo hoping to work as freelance composer. At the same time he started further research work on computer music at the Large Computer Center in the University of Tokyo as research fellow. Later he also attended to a music therapy course in Yokohama in order to work with handicapped children in future. During this time he co-produced a few alternative music festivals.
However after he learned that he could not make living by composing in Japan, he left his music activities and got involved in computer venture business together with his friends. 1983 he published MS-DOS handbook (the first written book on the subject in Japan) from ASCII Corporation, a publishing company then tied with Microsoft Japan (However since 1988 he has been and still is a devoted Apple Macintosh user). The book became one of the best sellers in the field.
1984 he married and followed his Finnish wife to Helsinki, Finland where she was studying scandinavian linguistics at the University of Helsinki. He returned to music and once again started researching new compositional ideas derived from experimental methods. His public debut in Helsinki was 1988 with a new Gagaku (Japanese court orchestra music) composition based on ancient Greek melodic material and was “translated” into a format of western symphony orchestra. It was played by then the fresh orchestra called AVANTI!. He also started to work in the field of contemporary dance production and co-produced video and TV productions.
1990 he became part-time music research engineer and consultant at the Music Research Lab of the doctoral study unit in Sibelius Academy, the only music university in Finland. Later 1998 he was appointed as a project planning officer dedicating his time to project & concert productions as well as teaching at the very newly opened music technology department at Sibelius Academy. He experimented his first computer networked composition 1998 at Warsaw Autumn, the prestigious international contemporary music festival with remotely connected string trio using live streaming technology that was yet at infant stage.
After intensive study on network communications technology and many experiments of its practical application to music, the summer 2001 he started 5 year research project funded by the Innovation Center of Sibelius Academy seeking new experimental compositional methods by means of the global computer network Internet.
He was researcher/composer in residence at ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany spring 2000 and again later Autumn 2001 during which time he held some lecture workshops at Basel Music Academy in Switzerland. He was invited as artist/researcher in residence from many universities such as Dartmouth Collage in US, Salford University in UK, Estonian Music Academy, Tokyo University of Arts and Music, Osaka University of Arts, Aichi University of Arts in Japan among others. 2004 – 2005 he organized a series of live electronics music concerts called New Music Academy where he introduced experimental live electronics works by both academic and non academic composers. New Music Academy concerts are all documented into 6 DVDs and published.
When the research project ended and came to face the severe fact that experimental music has no welcome position in music school, he left Sibelius Academy and opened a fresh course in Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in the Fall of 2006. His class named Experimental Sound Expression immediately attracted many fine art students from all the departments such as the department of painting, sculpture, printmaking and new media art as well as many students from other art universities and foreign exchange students. He also participated in Nordic Sound Art MA program and ECMCT, European Course for Music Composition & Technology MA program as guest teacher, where he gave workshops and taught many international music/art students.
In Summer 2008 he founded SILAKKA Productions, a private enterprise registered in Finland, where he produces the community radio show introducing experimental music/musicians & sound art/artis. The company produced the debut album of a psychedelic garage band and a series of experimental art evenings at the lobby of the Academy of Fine Arts. The direction where the new company is heading is currently wide open producing various kinds of artistic and experimental works. Currently he devotes his time mainly to composing and he is scheduled to return to artist in residency program at ZKM early January 2010 to compose his newest site-specific spatial work with colored noises.
