October 28, 2009
Akeo Okada, Associate Professor at the Institute for Research in Humanities, has won the 19th Hidekazu Yoshida Prize.
Administered by the Hidekazu Yoshida Art Promotion Foundation, the Hidekazu Yoshida Prize is awarded to those who have published outstanding art criticism in music, drama, fine arts and other fields.
Profile of Akeo Okada (Associate Professor at the Institute for Research in Humanities of Kyoto University): graduated from an undergraduate program at the School of Letters of Osaka University in March 1982; partially completed a PhD at the Graduate School of Letters of Osaka University in July 1988; studied a musicology PhD at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, Germany; began work as Associate Researcher at the School of Letters of Osaka University on April 1, 1992; was promoted to Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Human Development of Kobe University on May 1, 1994; and began work as Associate Professor at the Institute for Research in Humanities of Kyoto University on April 1, 2003.
Associate Professor Okada has won the Prize for his How to Listen to Music (Chukoshinsho), aesthetic and sociological research on fundamental issues regarding how to listen to music. Like a language, music has grammar and idioms. Without learning syntax and semantics in music, it is impossible to understand music as a language. Under modern music systems, however, music is appreciated not as a language but as sound, promoting the industrialization of music. Using a wide range of documents, from those of Immanuel Kant and Eduard Hanslick to those of Yukio Mishima, Hideo Kobayashi and Haruki Murakami, Associate Professor Akeo Okada reveals the change in "how to listen to music" in modern times, and cautions against the deterioration of music from language into sound.
The Prize has been awarded for his unique view on the history of music as well as his keen analyses of contemporary music.
