Yasutaka Hemmi

violinist / artistic director Sphere, Matsue, Japan

Yasutaka was born in Shimane, Japan in 1971. He graduated from the specialist music course of Shimane University and completed his masters in 1999. He has studied with Asako Urushihara, Tatsuo Chinen, Fumiko Nishigami and others.

For contemporary music, he has taken lessons with Arditti, Alberman and Mellinger. Yasutaka has invented his own techniques for contemporary music to play special pieces which would be impossible employing only traditional techniques.

Yasutaka has worked closely with Aphids since 1998, as a performer and Japan-based producer. Aphids has collaborated with Sphere on many projects including Ricefields, Skin Quartet, Fight with the Violin and individual concerts and presentations of contemporary music.

He has worked not only with composers such as Brian Ferneyhough, David Young, Juliana Hodkinson, Keiko Harada and so on, but with visual artists, sound designers, and dancers. Yastaka has been invited to many international festivals such as Melbourne, Brisbane Biennial, Belfort (France), Ars Musica (Belgium), Akiyoshidai (Japan) and given dozens of first performances.

Since 2001, he has been a regular member of the Belgian contemporary music ensemble, Champ d'Action, and had many performances in Europe. And since his solo recital in Brussels in 2002, he has became one of the most sought after violinists in Belgium.