In memoriam: My master, Joji Yuasa
I first met the composer Joji Yuasa about 50 years ago. I was in my second year at the College of Music. At that time, many composers began to teach at the college, including Akira Ifukube, Yoshiro Irino, Teizo Matsumura, Minoru Miki and Joji Yuasa. It was truly a ‘composers’ school.’ Among these, the Yuasa Seminar was the most avant-garde and dynamic of the 70s, and even I, a 20-year-old who knew nothing about it, was stimulated by his seminar. The seminar had many visitors from outside, many of whom I had never seen before, and I also enjoyed the spiky atmosphere by them.
I actually started taking composition lessons by Prof. Yuasa in the next year. The influence was immediate, and I immediately started composing based on a topological time axis. I stayed in the research course of the music college and became more and more immersed in the Yuasa world. Then, around 1981, when Joji Yuasa asked me, “I’m going to teach at the University of California, San Diego. Do you want to continue your studies there?” I may have just answered, “Yes, I’ll go,” without even understanding what he meant for a moment. Then, I quickly studied English and left for San Diego without knowing anything.
Students in UCSD had already gathered around Joji Yuasa, and everyone called him ‘Yuasa-san.’ Because he didn’t like being called “Joji.” For the next six years or so, I lived a relaxed student life under the blue sky with him. I often visited the Yuasa house in Encinitas, a little north of San Diego, and stayed at the house during the summer vacation. Anyway, Joji Yuasa loved parties. He often gathered students together and held parties at his home. One time, Morton Feldman stayed at the Yuasa house for a while, and I remember Feldman bringing a dozen delicious-looking Chardonnays in a wooden box for the party. It was also at that time that Joji Yuasa recommended that I study with Feldman.
Come to think of it, Joji Yuasa liked cars. He liked streamlined sports cars like the Camaro. Perhaps this streamlined, wind-swept experience and sense of time seems to have been transformed into the intertwining energy of that glissando that often appears in his orchestral works.
The last time I visited him was at the beginning of July. Then, upon hearing the news of his passing, memories of his time in San Diego came to mind. Coincidentally, a concert called “Portrait of Yuasa Joji at 95” was scheduled to be held on August 7th and 12th to coincide with his birthday in August, but he passed away before that could happen. The creaking sounds of Projection for String Quartet that I heard at that time sounded like Yuasa’s voice. He was truly passionate about composing until the very end, and his thoroughness in striving for an unprecedented sound was overwhelming.
I would like to thank him for his long association with an ungrateful pupil like me. Now, as I look at snapshots of him in his university laboratory, I recall the words he spoke to me at that time. Thank you very much, Prof. Joji Yuasa.
