He studied in Germany but returned to Japan, finding a personal style inspired by classical Japanese music and culture.

[1] On a recommendation from Huber, he returned to Japan, where he found his personal style influenced by traditional Japanese music.

[3] In 1989, he cofounded the annual Akiyoshidai International Contemporary Music Seminar and Festival in Yamaguchi and was its artistic director until 1998.

[5] His second opera was Hanjo, which premiered at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 2004,[1] staged by the choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker.

[4] Co-commissioned with La Monnaie in Brussels,[4] it was also performed in Bielefeld, Hamburg, Lisbon, Lyon, Milan and Tokyo.

[4] His works were premiered by conductors such as Kazushi Ono, Kent Nagano, Simon Rattle, Alexander Liebreich and Robin Ticciati.

[3] The oratorio was conceived in 1989 as a requiem for the victims of the nuclear bomb of 6 August 1945, but was expanded to a suite in five movements in 2001 in response to ecological problems due to economic growth.