Toshio Hosokawa is the most famous living Japanese composer. He was born in Hiroshima in 1955 and moved to Germany in 1976 to study composition with Isang Yun and Klaus Huber. His works are notable for an unmistakable musical language that emerges from the tensions between the Western avantgarde and traditional Japanese culture. Hosokawa has written numerous compositions for orchestra and for chamber ensemble. In the 2022/23 season, two new concertos by him were given their world premières: his Flute Concerto Ceremony, which was performed by Emmanuel Pahud accompanied by the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra under the baton of Paavo Järvi, and his Violin Concerto Prayer, with Daishin Kashimoto as soloist, accompanied by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, once more under the direction of Paavo Järvi. Hosokawa’s works for music theatre today belong to the repertoire of major opera houses. In his oeuvre of some 150 works, he has also repeatedly used Japanese instruments such as the shō and koto. Hosokawa has been a member of the Berlin Academy of the Arts since 2001, and in 2006/07 and 2008/09 he was also a Fellow of the “Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin”. He was awarded the Japan Foundation Award in 2018, and then the Goethe Medal in 2021 for his important contribution to international cultural dialogue. He is the Artistic Director of both the Takefu International Music Festival and of the Suntory Hall International Program for Music Composition.