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The most important and valuable treasures are three Heian period illustrated handscrolls of The Tale of Genji, dating to the 1130s. Along with one other scroll from the same set, now preserved at the Gotoh Museum, they are the earliest extant depictions of the epic tale and are National Treasures of Japan. The scrolls are so fragile that they are permanently diplayed to the public. Since at least Heisei 13, they have been displayed in the Tokugawa Museum for one week in November.
Unlike many private museums in Japan, which are based on collections assembled in the modern era by corporations or entrepreneurs, the Tokugawa Art Museum houses the hereditary collection of the Owari branch of the Tokugawa clan, which ruled the Owari Domain in what is now Aichi Prefecture. The museum is operated by the Tokugawa Reimeikai Foundation, which was founded in 1931 by Yoshichika Tokugawa (1886–1976), 19th head of the Owari clan, in order to preserve the clan's priceless collection of art objects, furnishings, and heirlooms.
The main building of the museum was constructed in the 1930s in a classic Japanese style with western elements. The permanent exhibition is housed in a historical reproduction of the living quarters of the Owari daimyō, allowing visitors to view the objects as they were actually used in settings such as a Japanese tea-house or Noh stage. The museum also mounts temporary exhibitions in a building that has been declared a national cultural property.
The Housa Library was established by Tokugawa Yoshinao, the first lord of the Owari Domain, as an official archive. It was transferred from the Tokugawa family to Nagoya City in 1950. Presently the library has about 110,000 items including classic literature.
Category:Museums in Nagoya Category:Tokugawa clan Category:Art museums and galleries in Japan
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| Name | 冨田 勲 Tomita Isao |
|---|---|
| Birth date | April 22, 1932 |
| Birth place | Tokyo, Japan |
| Known for | electronic music composer |
| Website | http://www.isaotomita.net/ |
In 1965, he composed the theme song and incidental music for Osamu Tezuka's animated TV series Jangaru Taitei (Jungle Emperor), released in the USA as Kimba the White Lion. In 1966 he wrote a tone poem based on this music with an original video animation synchronized to the tone poem released in 1991. Isao Tomita and Kunio Miyauchi also created the music for the tokusatsu SF/espionage/action TV series Mighty Jack, which aired in 1968.
By the late 1960s, Isao turned to electronic music with the impetus of Wendy Carlos and Robert Moog's work with synthesisers. Isao acquired a Moog III synthesizer and began building his home studio. He started arranging Claude Debussy's pieces for synthesizer and, in 1974, the album Snowflakes are Dancing was released; it became a worldwide success. His version of Arabesque No. 1 was later used as the theme to the astronomy TV series (originally titled Star Hustler) seen on most PBS stations.
He continued to release albums, of which the best known are his arrangements of classics, such as Igor Stravinsky's The Firebird, Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, and Gustav Holst's The Planets.
In 1968 he co-founded Group TAC.
While working on his classical synthesizer albums, Tomita continued composing numerous scores for Japanese television and films including the Zatoichi television series, two Zatoichi feature films, the Oshi Samurai (Mute Samurai) television series and the Toho science fiction disaster film, Catastrophe 1999, The Prophesies of Nostradamus (US title: Last Days of Planet Earth) in 1974. The latter blends synthesizer performances with pop-rock and orchestral instruments. It and a few other partial and complete scores of the period have been released on LP and later CD over the years in Japan. While not bootlegs, at least some of these releases were issued by film and TV production companies without Tomita's artistic approval.
Tomita and his music are heavily featured in Chris Marker's 1983 film-essay Sans Soleil.
In 1984, Tomita released Canon of the Three Stars, which featured classical pieces renamed for astronomical objects. For example, the title piece is his version of Pachelbel's Canon in D Major. He credits himself with "The Plasma Symphony Orchestra", which was a computer synthesizer process using the wave forms of electromagnetic emanations from various stars and constellations for the sonic textures of this album.
Tomita has performed a number of outdoor "Sound Cloud" concerts, with speakers surrounding the audience in a "cloud of sound". He gave a big concert in 1984 at the annual contemporary music Ars Electronica festival in Linz, Austria called "Mind of the Universe", live mixing tracks in a glass pyramid suspended over an audience of 80,000 people. He performed another concert in New York two years later to celebrate the Statue of Liberty centennial ("Back to the Earth") as well as one in Sydney in 1988 for Australia's bicentennial. The Australian performance was part of a $A7 million gift from Japan to New South Wales, which included the largest ever fireworks display at that time, six fixed sound and lighting systems — one of those on a moored barge in the centre of a bay, the other flown in by Chinook helicopter — for the relevant parts of the show. A fleet of barges with Japanese cultural performances, including kabuki fire drumming, passed by at various times. His most recent Sound Cloud event was in Nagoya, Japan in 1997 featuring guest performances by The Manhattan Transfer, Ray Charles, Dionne Warwick, and Rick Wakeman.
In the late 1990s he composed a hybrid orchestra plus synthesizer symphonic fantasy titled The Tale of Genji inspired by the eponymous old Japanese story. It was performed in concert by symphony orchestras in Tokyo, Los Angeles, and London. A live concert CD version was released in 1999 followed by a studio version in 2000.
In 2001, Tomita collaborated with Walt Disney Company to compose the background atmosphere music for the AquaSphere entrance at the Tokyo DisneySea theme park outside Tokyo.
His synthesizer score featuring acoustic soloists for the 2002 film won the 2003 Japanese Academy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Music.
The advent of the DVD-Audio format has allowed Tomita to further pursue his interests in multichannel audio with reworked releases of The Tale of Genji Symphonic Fantasy and The Tomita Planets 2003.
In 2008, his Snowflakes are Dancing played in the background at the Disney World Resort, Epcot, World Showcase, Japan, Bijutzu-kan Gallery.
Category:1932 births Category:Japanese musicians Category:New Age musicians Category:New Age synthesizer players Category:Living people Category:Keio University alumni
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Naomi Chiaki |
|---|---|
| Landscape | Yes |
| Background | solo_singer |
| Birth name | |
| Born | September 17, 1947 |
| Origin | Itabashi, Tokyo, Japan |
| Genre | Kayōkyoku, pop, enka, contemporary folk, rock, jazz fusion |
| Occupation | Singer, actress |
| Years active | 1969–1992 |
| Label | Nippon ColumbiaCBS SonyVictor/InvitationTeichiku |
Chiaki made her debut as a singer in 1969, and released her breakthrough single "Yottsu no Onegai" in the following year. "Kassai", a song which has been commonly considered her signature song was released in 1972 and gained success, and finally won the 14th Japan Record Award. "Kassai" sold over one million copies by February 1973, and was awarded a gold disc.
After marrying a former actor Eiji Go in 1978, Chiaki continued her career intermittently until circa 1992. However, she has disappeared from the Japanese entertainment scene for over 16 years, after her spouse died of lung cancer.
Category:1947 births Category:Japanese female singers Category:Japanese actors Category:Living people
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
