Michiko Toyama

Michiko Françoise Toyama (September 1, 1912 or 1913 – March 31, 2006) was a Japanese modernist composer. She was one of the first foreign composer to be invited to work at Columbia–Princeton Electronic Music Center (today known as the Computer Music Center).

Biography Toyama was born in Nakanoshima, Osaka, to Sutezō Toyama and Haru (Haruko) Toyama. Her paternal grandfather, Shūzō Toyama, and her father were both businessmen. and later served as an officer of the Piano Society; she encouraged her daughter's musical education from an early age.

She studied piano with the Russian pianist Pavel Kovalyov, who was lodging at the family home near Hamadera-kōen Station. In order to devote herself to the piano, she left Hagoromo Girls' High School — where her father was the school's proprietor — after two years. On April 23, 1928, she appeared as a pianist in a charity concert of the Piano Society, billed as a debut recital of Osaka's rising women pianists.

Having taught herself French, Toyama traveled alone to Paris in 1929 to study piano with Henri Gil-Marchex. From 1934 she studied composition with Nadia Boulanger at the École Normale de Musique. where it won a prize — making her the first Japanese composer to be awarded in an international competition. and Shūji Honda.

In 1954, Toyama studied with Darius Milhaud, Olivier Messiaen, and Noël Gallon at the Paris Conservatory, earning a degree in the composition department. She was inspired by the electronic music techniques presented by Pierre Schaeffer from Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française who came to Milhaud's class. In 1955, she received a scholarship to study at Tanglewood with Roger Sessions, and she studied conducting at the Pierre Monteux School. Around that time, Toyama and Edgard Varèse shared an enthusiasm for Japanese gagaku court music.

She returned to Japan in 1959 and subsequently became a research student in the Department of Electronic Engineering at Kyoto University, the Department of Information Science at the University of Tokyo, and the Radio Research Laboratories of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, where she conducted research in acoustics.

In 1960, Toyama's compositions were released on Folkways Records Album No. FW 8881. In 1993, The Voice of Yamato received its first performance in Japan at "Music of Our Time 1993," presented by the Japan Society for Contemporary Music after its performance in Paris at the International Society for Contemporary Music in 1937.

Toyama said, "composing music is my joy and I do it for myself. I hope my compositions will be performed, but I do not dare to organize performance opportunities for my compositions by myself."

Works Toyama published her music under the name Michiko Toyama. Her compositions include:

Electronic Aoi No Ue (tape and narrator, 1959) Waka (tape and narrator; text by Hyaku-nin Shu, 1958)

Orchestra Violin Concerto (1953) Suite on Japanese Folk Songs (1956) Passacaglia for orchestra (1957)

Vocal Voice of Yamato (soprano, flute, clarinet, bassoon and cello, 1937) Two Old Japanese Folk Songs with Koto Accompaniment (1958)

Discography Waka and Other Compositions: Contemporary Music of Japan (1960), Folkways Records, Album No. FW 8881. Original liner notes at Smithsonian Folkways.