Biography
Stomu Yamash'ta (also credited as Stomu Yamashta or Tsutomu Yamashita) is a Japanese percussionist, keyboardist and composer. Born in Kyoto in 1947, he studied at the Kyoto Academy of Music and performed with the Kyoto and Osaka Philharmonics as a teenager. He later studied at Juilliard and Berklee College of Music, and gained international attention in 1969 as soloist with Seiji Ozawa and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
In the 1970s he pioneered a fusion of traditional Japanese percussion and Western progressive rock. He led the short-lived supergroup Go, featuring Steve Winwood, Al Di Meola, Klaus Schulze and Michael Shrieve, and composed or performed on film soundtracks including Images (1972) and The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976). He also founded the Red Buddha Theatre company and brought its multimedia productions to Europe.
