Yo Goto

2011: Songs for Wind Ensemble

Yo Goto (b. 1958) is currently the executive director of the Japan Academic Society of Wind Music and a committee member of the Japan Band Clinic. He received his bachelor of music education degree from Yamagata University and a performance diploma from the Tokyo College of Music, where he studied composition with Shin-ichiro Ikebe. At the University of North Texas, he studied composition with Cindy McTee and earned his MM and MME degrees.

Goto has held clinics and guest-conducted at several international conferences, including the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles (WASBE) and the Midwest Clinic, and has won awards for conducting and composition including the Academy Award from the Academic Society of Japan for Winds and Band in 2000.

His Songs for Wind Ensemble, commissioned by the Hamamatsu Cultural Foundation in Japan, won the Sousa/ABA/Ostwald Award in 2011. This piece calls for 24 parts, each played by a single player, and features soloists performing melodies freely.