Biography
Fumio Hayasaka was a Japanese composer of classical music and film scores. Born in Sendai on 19 August 1914, he moved with his family to Sapporo as a child and was largely self-taught. He began composing concert works in the 1930s and moved to Tokyo in 1939 to work in film.
Hayasaka scored numerous films for Akira Kurosawa, including Drunken Angel (1948), Stray Dog (1949), Rashomon (1950), Ikiru (1952) and Seven Samurai (1954). He also composed for Kenji Mizoguchi on Ugetsu (1953), Sansho the Bailiff (1954) and Chikamatsu Monogatari (1954). He served as a mentor to composers Masaru Satō and Tōru Takemitsu.
Hayasaka died of tuberculosis in Tokyo on 15 October 1955, aged 41, while working on the score for I Live in Fear (1955).
