Chiyomi Yamada & Baobab
Biography Chiyomi Yamada & Baobab
Chiyomi Yamada
was born in 1956 in Fukuoka, Japan. When she was 16, she left her hometown to study classical music in Tokyo. After her graduation from the Music College she moved to The Netherlands to study Baroque music at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. Soon she became a member of the Renaissance acapella ensemble of Dr. Stewart and began to give concerts. This early experience has continued to be influential in shaping Chiyomi’s approach towards polyphonic vocal music and Gregorian chant. She also became the vocalist of the Japanese/European ensemble “Alba Musica Kyo” directed by lutenist Toyohiko Satoh, who became her lifetime partner. The group performed on festivals in The Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Canada. In 1983 Chiyomi traveled throughout Canada as a music envoy of the Japanese government, and in 1985, she gave a concert at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. For the next decades, she worked with diverse musicians and groups all over the continent. In this time, she also recorded several albums: “Two Orphean Masters” (Dowland and Purcell), “Music in Dejima”, “Love and Musical Drama (early Italian Baroque music)”, “Works of Toyohiko Satoh”, “Landini & his time”, “Machaut & his time”, “Music of Shakespeare”, “Dawn to the West” (OldJapanese songs).
In 2022, Chiyomi moved back to Japan, her home country. She started a new project on the shared Japanese-European cultural history and organized a concert series in her private house for many years. From 2010-2016 she recorded some more albums: “Kurofune – songs of the black ships” which tells the story of the Japanese-European cultural interchange in 16th century Nagasaki, “Yugen” with works of her partner Toyohiko Satoh, and “Gilyak Songs” with music by the famous Japanese composer Akira Ifukube. From there on, she embarked on an all-new journey to finally return to her ancestral musical roots. Joining forces with Japanese folk band Baobab, she explored the ancient melodies of her homeland and over the course of several years they developed the album “Utsuroi / Songs of my lands” which was released worldwide in March 2024.
