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Yoshiaki Onishi

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Birth name
  
Yoshiaki Onishi

Name
  
Yoshiaki Onishi

Instruments
  
Clarinet

Role
  
Composer

Years active
  
2000-present

Education
  
Columbia University

Website
  
www.yoshiakionishi.com


Occupation(s)
  
Composer, Conductor, Clarinetist

Genres
  
Contemporary classical music

Similar People
  
Nieuw Ensemble, Huck Hodge, Oscar Bianchi, Tristan Murail, Tyshawn Sorey

Yoshiaki onishi palinody for fourteen players 2010


Yoshiaki Onishi (大西 義明, Onishi Yoshiaki, born 1981 in Hokkaido, Japan) is a composer and conductor. He is a recipient of several international prizes and honors. He currently resides in Japan.

Contents

Gaudeamus muziekweek 2011 presents yoshiaki onishi


Education

In 2000 he entered the Conservatory of Music at the University of the Pacific, studying composition and clarinet, graduating in 2004. Between 2005 and 2008 he did his graduate studies in music composition at Yale University. In February 2015 he received his doctorate from Columbia University, where his principal teachers have been Fabien Lévy, Tristan Murail and Fred Lerdahl.

Onishi is the recipient of 2011 Gaudeamus Prize in Music Composition, and the 2012 Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship.

Onishi as a composer

Onishi’s music has been in part characterized by the engineering of timbres. In his 2009 work for string quartet, Culs-de-sac (en passacaille), he employs varieties of extended techniques for the string instruments. Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times said of the piece: “Who needs electronic instruments when a composer can draw such varied, eerily alluring sounds from good old string instruments?”.

Onishi’s works have been commissioned by performers and organizations including Mayumi Miyata, Pacific Music Festival, Norfolk and Lucerne Festivals. His composition, Départ dans… was commissioned by Takefu International Music Festival in 2010, and became the winning piece of the Gaudeamus Prize in Music Composition in 2011.

Several performance organizations, including JACK Quartet, Yarn/Wire, Nieuw Ensemble, and Ensemble Intercontemporain, have performed Onishi’s works.

Works

The following is a partial list of works.

  • Tréma/Trame I (2011), for 4 players
  • Tr (2011), for violoncello and piano
  • Palinody (2010), for 14 players in 7 groups
  • Départ dans... (2010), for 5 players
  • Sans Percussion – Une Esquisse-Sculpture (2009) for orchestra of 51 players
  • Culs-de-sac (en passacaille) (2009, rev. 2010), for string quartet
  • Tu n’y trouveras que du vent II (2008), for 3 Japanese Gagaku Instruments.
  • Vague II «molto ritardando» (2008) for 36 instrumentalists
  • Marche du Supplice (2007) for 12 percussionists
  • Vague I (2007) two miniatures for 13 instrumentalists (Ligeti Kammerkonzert formation)
  • ref. (2006-7) for orchestra
  • Lost Geometry (2006) (piece III of Ventiform) for 41 musicians
  • Onishi as a conductor

    Onishi was an assistant conductor of the Columbia University Orchestra until 2013. He is also affiliated with New York-based percussion ensemble Iktus Percussion as a conductor of the Iktus+. He has also guest conducted several ensembles, including the Wet Ink Ensemble.

    References

    Yoshiaki Onishi Wikipedia