Yamash’ta, Stomu (real name, Tsutomu Yamashita)

Yamash’ta, Stomu (real name, Tsutomu Yamashita) ,Japanese percussionist and composer; b. Kyoto, March 10,1947. He was trained in music by his father. He played piano in his infancy, drums at puberty, and in early adolescence he became a timpanist for the Kyoto Phil. and Osaka Phil; also worked in several film studios in Tokyo. At 16, he went to London for further study, and later went to the U.S. as a scholarship student at the Interlochen (Mich.) Arts Academy; continued his musical education in Boston, N.Y., and Chicago. Returning to Japan, he gave solo performances as a percussionist. Yamash’ta developed a phenomenal degree of equilibristic prestidigitation, synchronously manipulating a plethora of drums and a congregation of oriental bells and gongs while rotating 360 from the center of a circle to reach the prescribed percussionable objects. As a composer, he cultivates a manner of controlled improvisation marked by constantly shifting meters. In 1970 he formed the Red Buddha Theater (an ensemble of actors, musicians, and dancers), for which he composed 2 musical pageants, Man from the East (1971) and Rain Mountain (1973). Other works include a ballet, Fox (1968); Hito for any 3 instruments (1970); Prisms for percussion (1970); Red Buddha for chamber ensemble (1971); percussion scores for many Japanese films, as well as for Ken Russell’s The Devils (with Peter Maxwell Davies, 1971) and Robert Airman’s Images (1972).

— Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn /Dennis McIntire