Early life, studies in Vienna Hisatada Otaka was born in Tokyo on 26 September 1911, the youngest of 11 children, he was the 6th son of , a Japanese banker, businessman, however Jiro Otaka would die in 1920, when Hisatada Otaka was 9 years old. Hisatada's mother, Fumiko, was one of
Viscount Shibusawa's daughters. Otaka studied at the
Tokyo Prefectural Fifth Junior High School. After graduating there, Otaka decided to choose a career path in music and studied at the
Seijo High School (which would become
Seijo University), however he dropped out. In 1937, Otaka won a Japanese-European music competition for his first Japanese Suite, he was awarded by Felix Weingartner. although Otaka never had an incident like this later on. At some point after 1936, Otaka and his wife Misao (who also played the piano) met and became friends with
Andrzej Panufnik, who also came to Vienna to study conducting under Weingartner. The Panufnik and Otaka family would stay close and remain in contact, as Otaka's son, Tadaaki Otaka would perform Panufnik's works regularly. Besides conducting, Otaka also composed prolifically, and had taught
Hikaru Hayashi,
Kan Ishii, Among Otaka's compositions are his first symphony ("Society for the Construction of the Bell Tower of Peace"), Cello Concerto (1944), Flute Concerto, and Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra (1943).
Death and legacy On 16 February 1951, Hisatada Otaka died at the age of 39, from what Andrzej Panufnik says was overwork. After his death, the orchestra's name changed to the
NHK Symphony Orchestra because of funding received from
NHK (Japanese Broadcasting Corporation). Hisatada Otaka's youngest son,
Tadaaki Otaka, conducts his father's work regularly, along with the works of Andrzej Panufnik.
Personal life Hisatada Otaka married Misao Otaka sometime before 1940. According to Panufnik, they were already married when they would invite Panufnik to their house in Vienna, and they left Vienna for Japan in 1940. When the couple moved to Japan, they had a daughter and two sons. Michiko Otaki (in or after 1940), the daughter, is a pianist.
Atsutada Otaka (1944), the elder son, is a
musicologist and a composer.
Tadaaki Otaka, (1947), the younger son, is a popular Japanese conductor, a permanent conductor of the NHK Symphony Orchestra since 2010, the first Japanese person to win the
Elgar Medal, and musical director of the
Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra. When Hisatada Otaka died in 1951, the couple's children were still very young (Tadaaki being only 4 years old), and therefore Misao was left as a widowed mother. ==Selected compositions==