Japanese Mourn Death of Philharmonic Conductor

Akira Kikukawa, founder and music director of the Japanese Philharmonic Orchestra of Los Angeles, has died, family members confirmed Friday. He was 57. The cause of death was not immediately known.

Kikukawa, who founded the community orchestra in 1961, was to have led the Gardena-based group in its Orange County debut Sunday in a program with the Roger Wagner Chorale at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa. The concert will go ahead as scheduled, but a guest conductor will take Kikukawa’s place and the program will be altered slightly.

The 85-member Japanese Philharmonic Orchestra, which in recent years performed at least once annually at the Music Center of Los Angeles County, presented standard symphonic works as well as more recent compositions by Asian composers writing in the Western style. The orchestra often uses Japanese music and instruments and about half its members are of Japanese descent.

“I think Kikukawa was the first one in history . . . to create this kind of community orchestra for Japanese people, to create this kind of organization outside of Japan,” said Masatoshi Mitsumoto, founder and director of Los Angeles’ Concordia Orchestra, who was Kikukawa’s principal cellist intermittently for nearly 20 years.

“He is responsible for introducing many, many Japanese works and artists to the Los Angeles audience and made people aware of Japanese musical contributions to the world,” Mitsumoto said. “One of his most notable accomplishments was the performance of a Japanese opera written in Japan by Ikuma Dan called ‘Twilight Crane,’ that he produced and conducted a few years ago at Japanese American Cultural and Community Center.

“He will be missed by the entire Japanese community” in Southern California, he said. “He was one of its cultural leaders.”

Members of Kikukawa’s family would not comment on the cause of death, which occurred Thursday morning at Gardena Memorial Hospital. But Mitsumoto said that the late conductor, a Gardena resident, had been fighting a kidney ailment and had been using a dialysis machine for more than 10 years.

Born in Osaka, Japan, Kikukawa was a cellist before he came to the United States to study with cellist Gabor Rejto and conducting instructor Ingolf Dahl at USC, he told The Times in a 1988 interview. After learning of the need for a Japanese orchestra in Los Angeles, he formed his ensemble with 31 players during the Nisei Week Festival held in Little Tokyo, he said.

Future plans for the Japanese Philharmonic Orchestra, which presents about six concerts annually, were not immediately known.

Sunday’s 2:30 p.m. performance in Costa Mesa, presented by the Japanese Philharmonic Orchestra Society, will be led by guest conductor Frederick Valazs, Kikukawa’s daughter Ryoko said Friday. Two works by Bach, his “Arioso” and “Toccata and Fugue,” will replace a work by Japanese composer Yuzo Toyama. Otherwise, the program will remain largely the same as originally announced, she said.

Officials of the Roger Wagner Chorale were not available for comment Friday.