Biography

Recording with the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Slovakia in 1998
Photo by Kathleen Mayne

Masatoshi Mitsumoto’s works have been performed in recent years by Washington Musica Viva, Washington chapter of the Composers Forum, the Friday Morning Music Club and Composers Society of Montgomery County. They include “Songs of Innocence” , “Songs of Experience”, “Two Japanese songs”, “Elegy” for clarinet (or viola) and piano, “Washington Triptyque” for violin, marimba and piano, and “Divertimento” for flute, viola and piano. He conducted the Toru Takemitsu celebration at the Library of Congress in 2005 and a Martinu concert at the Czech Embassy for Washington Musica Viva in 2004.

Mitsumoto started his career as a cellist. He is a former student of Paul Tortelier and Gregor Piatigorsky. Before relocating to the Washington DC area in 2002, Mitsumoto had been actively involved in the musical scene of the Los Angeles area and Las Vegas. He was music director and conductor of the Laguna Beach Summer Music Festival (1977-1984), Concordia Orchestra (1986-1998) and Las Vegas Chamber Symphony (1978-1985). He has made several CD recordings as conductor for the MMM records and Cambria labels. He has also served on the music faculties at California State University, Los Angeles, Whittier College, and University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

My story: {Part 1: Before America 1966}

I was born Ichiro Mitsumoto in Tokyo in 1937. When I was about five I had my first piano lessons from my father. He was a music teacher in a public school and taught piano privately at home. Every weekend, our small house in Asagaya (west of Shinjuku) was filled with the piano sounds of Czerny studies, Hanon scales, Clementi, Mozart, Beethoven, or Chopin from morning to late afternoon.

It all stopped as WWII escalated and intensified. No more western music. Only propaganda war songs were rampant in the streets. We evacuated from Tokyo and stayed with my uncle in the northern part of Hokkaido till the war ended in August 1945. Luckily our house was spared from the Tokyo air raids and slowly our music life resumed.

I was in the fifth grade when the cello came into my life. I was assigned to play the instrument in the school orchestra. My progress was rapid; the following year I was selected to play chamber music with highly talented young musicians for a broadcast on the National Radio (NHK) as well as for American GIs hospitalized in Tokyo.

Everything was sparse in those days, including food and entertainment. I remember how excited I was when my father took me to see a Tarzan movie, my first American movie. Probably my father wanted to see Johnny Weissmuller, because he was an excellent swimmer himself. I never dreamed that in my later years I would be re-recording the scores of these Tarzan movies.....

As soloist with Keio University's Wagner Society Orchestra
Tokyo, 1963

In 1959 I graduated from the Tokyo University of Fine Arts, as cello performance major. The same year I entered and won a competition for Scholarships given by the French Government to study in France. This annual competition was open to many fields, including science and medicine. I believe it's still being held today. That year I was one of the two musicians selected; I was off to Paris to study at the Paris Conservatory.

The three years I spent in Paris seems like yesterday. Hemingway was absolutely right when he wrote, "if you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast."

Paul Tortelier was my cello teacher at the Conservatory. His artistry and temperament as a musician made the foremost impact on me. I benefited just as much from his cellist wife, Maud who was his assistant at the Conservatory. Also I enjoyed tremendously the chamber music class of Mr. and Mrs. Pierre Pasquier, for it was so lively and spontaneous, the whole class was like a big family. The class of Prof. Norbert DuFourcq on music history was special too; he made history come alive, it was not something that happened in the past because in each lecture he made a clear connection to the present. This perspective on western music history was unimaginable to me as a young student from Japan.

My additional study in France included two summers at the Nice International Academy. There, I was the first cello in the orchestra for Hans Swarowsky's conducting class, a benefit that I realized many years later. I was in the chamber music class with Jean-Pierre Rampal and studied cello with the venerable André Navarra. These classes and experiences are unforgettable. The Mediterranean summer air was intoxicating. Once I was with fellow students playing on the Promenade des Anglais. Would you believe that many people threw money?

With Piatigorsky in LA, 1966

In the summer of 1962 I returned to Tokyo. Later that year I became a member of the then newly formed Yomiuri-Nippon Symphony in Tokyo. I stayed with the orchestra for three years. It was there I learned all the standard orchestral repertory. It also gave me the opportunity to play under many illustrious guest conductors like Leopold Stokowski, Arthur Fiedler, and the composer, Aram Khachaturian.

In 1966, still eager to study further, I wanted to come to the United States and study with Gregor Piatigorsky at USC. The celebrated American cellist, Christine Walevska, with whom I had become friends in Paris, had graciously made contact with him on my behalf.

I landed in Los Angeles in May 1966 with grand hopes and dreams. I was nervous and excited at the same time when Christine drove me through the winding Sunset Boulevard to Piatigorsky's home in Brentwood. I played for him in his beautiful living room with the wall full of great paintings, by Renoir, Soutine, and others I didn't recognize. Then, to my relief, he said in his deep tone of voice, "my class is already full, but you can join us."

{Part 2: Los Angeles - Las Vegas}