Hiroshi Yoshimura


Hiroshi Yoshimura was a Japanese musician and composer. He is considered a pioneer of ambient music in Japan. Mostly the minimalist genre of kankyō ongaku, or environment music — soft electronic melodies infused with the sounds of nature; babbling brooks, steady rain, morning birds.

Early life

Hiroshi Yoshimura was born in Yokohama, Kanagawa in 1940. He graduated from Waseda School of Letters, Arts and Sciences II in 1964.

Career

He started the computer music group "Anonyme" in 1972. In 1978, he was commissioned by the NHK to compose the piece "Alma's Cloud".
In addition to solo performances and improvisational music, he performed production performance and sound objects, environmental music containing graphic design and sound design, visual poetry, and worked on sound design business in collaboration with TOA. In addition to solo performance and improvisational music, he made music for galleries, museums, building spaces and train stations. He was at the forefront of environmental music. He worked as a part-time lecturer in the Industrial Design Department at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Chiba and at the Music Design Department of Kunitachi College of Music. He held workshops on citizen participation in museums.
Yoshimura died of skin cancer in 2003.

Legacy

In 2017, Yoshimura, as well as other ambient Japanese musicians, received a resurgence due to the YouTube algorithm. In 2019, his song "Blink" off his debut album was selected for compilation album Kankyo Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980-1990 In 2020, Light in the Attic Records released Green on Spotify, Youtube, Deezer, Apple Music, Google Play Music, Amazon music, alongside CDs, vinyls and cassettes.
His music has received much critical acclaim. In 2018, Crack Magazine selected his albums Green and Music For Nine Post Cards as the number 1 and number 7th most essential Japanese ambient albums respectively. Malcolm Standing for Demo Magazine referred to Yoshimura as "one of the most influential and prolific of the artists to come out of Japan’s ambient renaissance".

Discography