Yasuhiro Kobayashi

Yasuhiro Kobayashi As a musician, accordionist, composer and arranger, Yasuhiro Kobayashi is the most famous Japanese accordionist, with more than 1.000.000 CDs sold.

His collaboration with Björk lead him to perfom all over the world with concerts and tours.He has made video productions for MTV too.

With his extremely unique, pop accordion music, coba has revolutionized the image of the instrument.At his concert in London in 1995, signer Bjork heard his music and was instantly attracted by it. Right after the performance she invited him to participate in her world tour. coba thus performed on Bjork's world concert tour for 3 years, covering over 60 counties; more than 3 million audience worldwide enjoyed the collaboration of Bjork and coba's innovative accordion sound. During the same period, coba also worked with many other artists, including goldie, 808 sate, underworld, plaid and howie B. He has been collaborating with plaid and howie B on many occasions since then.
Currently, coba produces music for more than 10 regular nationwide TV and radio programs. He is also engaged in a variety of activities ranging from producing projects for many other artists to producing film music. He is certainly one of the busiest composers, players and producers in Japan.
He has recently released his 26th original album from EMI TOSHIBA.

Born in 1959, coba started practicing the accordion at the age of 9. At the age of 18 he went over to Italy to study at the Accordion Department of the Scuola di Musica Luciano Fancelli in Venice from which he graduated first on the list.
Footmarks in his career include the following:
April, 1979: Won the first prize at the 2nd All Japan Accordion Contest.
September 1979: Won the first prize at the Alassio International Accordion competition (held in Alassio, Italy). October, 1980: Won the first prize at the 30th C.M.A. World Accordion competition (held in Vienna, Austria).
1989: Started the concert tour in Europe.
1991: His album "Under the Moon in Sicily" (EMI) was awarded the Special Prize of Nippon Record Taisho(the Japan Record Grand Awards). Launched an annual national concert tour covering 20 locations.
1994: His 6th album "mania coba" (EMI) became a great hit, selling over 200,0000 copies.
1995-'96: Participated in Bjork's world tour, attracting over 3 million audience in more than 60 countries around the world.
1996: His album 'ROOTS?' was chosen the best album by 'nova magazine' published by the French FM station 'RADIO NOVA'.

Coba has released 25 albums to date, repeatedly renewing by far the record of sales for instrumental albums in Japan. Besides the annual national tour covering more than 20 locations in Japan, he is actively engaged in a wide range of music projects, such as producing stage music, film music, TV and radio music and CM music.
Coba is one of the most popular artists in Japan.

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