About Ayuo Takahashi
Ayuo Takahashi is a Japanese-born American composer, poet, lyricist, singer, and performer of plucked string instruments including guitar, bouzouki, Irish harp, Chinese zheng, Japanese koto, and medieval European psaltery. He is adept at adapting the ancient music of Japan, China, Persia, Greece, and medieval Europe to create a new and original music without abandoning their strict forms while simultaneously making them relevant to contemporary music styles. He has composed for classical ensembles including string quartets, piano, various chamber ensembles, and orchestra, as well as composed, produced and performed with rock, jazz and musicians of various traditional music from around the world. He has also composed many music theater pieces, some of which has been released on CD in the United States and Japan. His first studio recording was in 1976 with his father, Yuji Takahashi, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Masahiko Togashi on the CD "Twilight" released on Columbia Records in Japan. His first solo record,"Carmina", was recorded in 1983 and released in 1984 from Epic-Sony. Much of the biography here is a summary from Ayuo's autobiography first published in Japanese on his homepage (ayuo.net) and later expanded in his autobiographical book, "Outside Society" published by Getsuyosha in Japan.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.