This Just In: Takashi Yoshimatsu’s “Memo Flora"

WCRB | By William Peacock PublishedOctober 23, 2024 at 4:00 AM EDT Takashi Yoshimatsu is perhaps one of the most enigmatic composers Japan has produced. With no degree in music, an affinity for composing art music but a disconnect from contemporary aesthetics, and a strong penchant for Pink Floyd and other progressive rock bands (he was even a keyboard player for some in his younger years!), Yoshimatsu somehow both surpasses and dismantles expectations at every turn.After growing up in Yoyogi, a neighborhood in northern Tokyo, where he enjoyed Beethoven symphonies and albums by The Ventures and The Walker Brothers in equal measure, Yoshimatsu then studied engineering at Keio University. There, he met composer and poet Teizo Matsumura, who took Yoshimatsu under his wing, further enmeshing him into the contemporary classical music world. Later, after a professor of music at the Tokyo University of the Arts convinced him to study harmony and counterpoint, Yoshimatsu began music lessons bu...