Yoshihisa Taira

was a Japanese composer of contemporary classical music primarily active in France. Grove Music Online remarks that "His treatment of time and space, sonority, poetic lyricism, silence [...] were derived from traditional Japanese music and art, and are compatible with a French modernist aesthetic".

Biography Yoshihisa Taïra was born in Tokyo on 3 March 1937. Initially, he attended the Tokyo University of the Arts, studying composition under Tomojirō Ikenouchi, and graduating in 1965. He then arrived in France to study at the Conservatoire de Paris; his teachers there included André Jolivet, Henri Dutilleux, Olivier Messiaen, Taïra also studied with Iannis Xenakis.

He was a composition lecturer at the École Normale de Musique in Paris. Among his best-known students at École Normale were Chien-Hui Hung, Mansoor Hosseini and Malika Kishino.

Taïra died in Paris, on 13 March 2005.

Works Source: Taira's works are partially published by Éditions Musicales Transatlantiques.

Orchestra Hiérophonie III Stratus for flute, harp and strings ensemble Chromophonie Sonomorphie III Méditations Trans-apparence Erosion I for flute and orchestra Moksa, vimoksa Tourbillon for 6 percussionists and orchestra Polyèdre

Chamber music Hiérophonie I for 4 cellos Hiérophonie II for 15 instruments Fusion for 2 flutists and 3 percussionists Stratus for harp and flute Dioptase for three strings Radiance for solo piano and 13 instruments Eveil for oboe and harp Interférences I for and cellos Clea for 12 strings Dimorphie for 2 percussions Fu-mon for 4 flutes Ressac for 13 instruments Pénombres I for 2 guitars and 12 strings Pénombres II for double bass and piano Synchronie for 2 flutes or flute and shakuhachi Pénombres III for harp and small ensemble Pénombres V for viola and piano (1996) Pénombres VI for alto saxophone and piano Flautissimo for 32 flutes Aïalos for G flute and harp Synergie for 2 double basses

Instrumental Sonate for violin Sonate for viola Sonomorphie I for piano Sublimation for harp Hiérophonie IV for 4 flutes (one performer) Maya for bass flute in C or alto flute in G Convergence I for marimba Convergence II for double bass Convergence III for violin Cadenza I for flute Monodrame I for percussion Monodrame II for bassoon Monodrame III for guitar Monodrame IV for vibraphone