Born in Hiroshima in 1955, he went to West Berlin to study composition with Isang Yun at the Hochschule der Künste at the age of 21. He subsequently studied with Klaus Huber at the Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg (1983–86).
In 1980, he participated for the first time in the International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt, where his work was performed. Since then, he has presented his works in Europe and Japan, gaining an international reputation and winning numerous awards and prizes, including First Prize in the Composers’ Competition to mark the centenary of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (1982), the Rheingau Musikpreis (1998), the Duisburger Musikpreis (1998) and ‘musica viva-Preises der ard und bmw ag’ (2001).
In 2001, Hosokawa became a member of Akademie der Künste in Berlin. He has been invited to nearly all of the major contemporary festivals in Europe as composer-in-residence, guest composer or lecturer, including the Darmstadt Courses (from 1990), the Venice Biennale (1995, 2001), the Munich Biennale (1998), the ‘Mozarteum’ Summer Academy in Salzburg (1998), the International Music Week in Lucerne (2000), ‘musica viva’ in Munich (2001), Klangspuren in Schwaz (2002), Musica Nova in Helsinki (2003) and the Centre Acanthes in Villeneuve-les-Avignon (2003).
Hosokawa’s first opera, Vision of Lear, commissioned by the City of Munich and premiered at the Munich Biennale in 1998, was highly acclaimed as ‘a work inspired by the encounter of East and West which has opened up a new musical world.’ His second opera, Hanjo, commissioned by the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, was premiered there in 2004. His latest orchestral work, Circulating Ocean, was commissioned by the Salzburg Festival and premiered there in August 2005 by the Vienna Philharmonic under Valery Gergiev.
From 1989 to 1998 he served as Artistic Director for the annual Akiyoshidai International Contemporary Music Seminar and Festival. He is composer-in-residence at the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra (from 1998) and Music Director for the Takefu International Music Festival (from 2001).
He is the author of a collection of essays Tamashi no Landscape (Landscape of the Soul), published in Japanese by Iwanami Shoten in 1997. The book won him an award from the Japanese Club of Essayists in 1998.

Selected works (since 1985): Sen I for flute (1984, rev. 1986), New Seeds of Contemplation for four singing monks and five gagaku musicians (1986, rev. 1995), Ferne Landschaft I–III for orchestra (1987, 1996, 1996), Flute Concerto ‘Per-Sonare’ (1988), Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima for soloists, narrators, choir, tape and orchestra (1989, rev. 2000–01), Landscape I for string quatret (1992), Landscape III for violin and orchestra (1993), Sen VI for percussion (1993), Vertical Time of Study III for violin and piano (1994), Super Flumina Babylonis for soprano, alto and chamber orchestra with string orchestra ad lib. (1995), Utsurohi-Nagi for shô and symphony orchestra with harp, celesta and percussion (1996), Cello Concerto – In Memory of Toru Takemitsu (1997), Seascapes – Night for mixed choir and seven musicians (1997), Voyage I for violin and ensemble (1997), Vision of Lear, opera in two acts to a libretto by Tadashi Suzuki after Shakespeare (1997–98), Seescapes – Oita for orchestra (1998), Cloudscapes – Moon Night for shô and accordion (1998), Memory of the Sea (Hiroshima Symphony) for orchestra (1998–99), Koto-Uta for voice and koto (1999), Voyage IV – Extasis for accordion and ensemble (2000), Re-turning, concerto for harp and orchestra (2001), Somon-ka for voice, koto, cello and ensemble (2001–02), Voyage VI for viola and strings (2002), Garden at First Light for gagaku ensemble (2003), Wind from the ocean for orchestra (2003), Hanjo, opera in one act to the composer’s libretto after Yukio Mishima’s play of the same title (2003–04), Mein Herzensgrund, unendlich tief for mixed choir and marimba (2004), Drawing for eight musicians (2004), Circulating Ocean for orchestra (2005), Voyage VII for trumpet, strings and percussion (2005); film music.

Cloudscapes – Moon Night
The accordion originated in the oriental shô, the oldest musical instrument in the world. The shô was integrated into 19th-century Western music by having a keyboard attached to it. The new instrument, with the same principles of sound production as the shô, was called the accordion.
I decided to go back to the origins of these two instruments, to their first meeting, and turn that moment when the sound of the two instruments was first born into music. It is the work of listening to the shape of the sounds which the breath produces and which then disappear into silence just as if looking at them under a microscope.
In Cloudscapes – Moon Night, the shô and the accordion are considered to belong to the same family of instruments, having the same principles of sound production. The sounds produced from the two instruments continually change, just as clouds change as they slowly move across the sky on a moonlit night.
These two instruments, weaving together the cosmic dual forces, are subtly different even while having very similar tone colour. Neither resisting nor opposing the other, but each attracting and embracing the other, each drawing near to the other like light and shadow and male and female, the two instruments eternally, endlessly repeat their changes.
This work is dedicated to Mayumi Miyata and Stefan Hussong.

Toshio Hosokawa