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Gilyak Songs on CD

This new release features piano songs by the Japanese composer Akira Ifukube (1914-2006), interpreted by Chiyomi Yamada, voice, and Reiko Yamada, piano. Ifukube, who most famously composed the theme song of "Godzilla", wrote these magical pieces based on traditional songs from native tribes of northern Japan. The sound and style of this music are somewhere between western contemporary and eastern traditional music, creating a unique fusion of musical and aesthetic elements. The piano songs are complemented with an epic piece for classical guitar solo by Ifukube, played by the Dutch guitarist David van Ooijen. Akira Ifukube was born in 1914 in Kushiro Japan. He was strongly influenced by the Ainu music, as he spent his childhood in Otofuke, where there lived a mixed population of Ainu and Japanese people. He decided to become a composer at the age of 14 after hearing a radio performance of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. He worked as a forestry officer until the end of the Second World War, when he suffered radiation exposure and had to abandon forestry work and become a professional composer and teacher. The Japanese government awarded Ifukube the Order of Culture. Subsequently, he was awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Third Class.