To Tokyo with His Family in 1929: The Pianist Leo Sirota

On September 16, 1929, the pianist Leo Sirota (Ukrainian: Лео Сірота) arrived in Japan with his family. It was his second visit, following a concert tour the previous autumn. The Kokumin Nenkan (National Yearbook) of the time recorded the day in a single line: “The great pianist Mr. Leo Sirota has come to Japan again, accompanied by his family.” Sirota went on to live in Japan until 1946, teaching piano at the Tokyo Music School (now the Faculty of Music, Tokyo University of the Arts).

What follows draws on a paper by Yamamoto Hisashi (“Bulletin of the Gakushuin Senior High School,” No. 13, 2015), a doctoral dissertation held by Showa University of Music (Otakeshima Sako, 2020), authority records from the U.S. Library of Congress and Japan’s National Diet Library, and yearbooks from the 1930s and 1940s available in the National Diet Library Digital Collections (as of September 2026). Where sources disagree, both are given.

Where Was He Born, and Where Did He Study?

Yamamoto’s paper identifies Sirota as “from Ukraine” and gives his birth year as 1885. The National Diet Library’s authority record also gives 1885–1965 as his birth and death years. But his birthplace and exact birth date are given differently in different sources.

Three Different Birthplaces in the Sources

The 1941 yearbook’s “born in Austria” appears to record, as his country of birth, the country he moved to and gained citizenship in when he was young. This article does not settle which source is correct. The Library of Congress authority record also lists Vienna, Warsaw, Japan, and the United States as places of activity.

As for where he studied, the composer Yamada Kōsaku, in a 1937 essay collection, introduces the Kyiv conservatory—in an account of a visit to the Soviet Union—as “the alma mater of Leo Sirota, familiar to you all.” According to Yamamoto’s paper, Sirota later moved to Vienna and studied under the composer and pianist Ferruccio Busoni, giving a recital in Berlin on February 8, 1910.

Old Spelling “Kiev,” New Spelling “Kyiv”

Yamada Kōsaku’s 1937 essay writes the city’s name as “Kiev.” Japanese-language books of the time, and English-language sources based on Russian pronunciation, likewise wrote his birthplace as “Kamenets-Podolsky.” In today’s Ukrainian-based spelling, these are Kyiv and Kamianets-Podilskyi. Searching for old sources sometimes requires using the old spellings.

From the 1928 Concert Tour to Life in Tokyo

According to Yamamoto’s paper, Sirota first came to Japan in 1928, then, on returning the following year, 1929, settled in Japan and lived there until 1946. Otakeshima’s dissertation includes a list of his concerts, showing a solo recital at Tokyo’s Asahi Kodo hall on November 15, 1928, and a performance in Osaka on December 16.

After settling in, he also performed on the radio. The 1932 edition of the Radio Nenkan (Radio Yearbook) cites his 1930–31 series broadcasting all of Beethoven’s piano sonatas as an example of a performance plan that would have been hard to arrange without radio.

A “Hired Foreign Teacher” at Tokyo Music School

The Tokyo Music School published a staff roster each year in its “Tokyo Ongaku Gakko Ichiran” (Tokyo Music School Handbook). In two volumes readable in the National Diet Library Digital Collections, Sirota is listed under “hired foreign teachers” (雇外国人教師) as the piano instructor.

The change in the nationality listed is likely because Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938. Since he appears first, ahead of other foreign teachers, in the 1932 roster’s “order of joining,” he must have joined before that; the year he actually joined is not stated in either of these two volumes.

According to Yamamoto’s paper, Sirota taught piano to all third-year students in the school’s regular course over a long period, and also taught private students outside the school.

Students Named in the Sources

No source appears to give the total number of his students. Only those named in the sources are listed here.

• Yamamoto’s paper names Toyomasu Noboru, Ōshima Masayasu, Kaneko Shigeko, and Nagai Susumu, among others, as his students at Tokyo Music School.
• As private students outside the school, the same paper names Fujita Haruko, Tanaka Sonoko, Kuroda Mutsuko, and Matsukuma Yōko, and writes that winners of the piano category of a music competition came from Sirota’s students for four consecutive years, 1938 to 1940.
• The 1941-edition Ongaku Nenkan records that at a 1939 recital by his students, Sirota himself conducted an orchestra while Kinoshita Yoshiko, Nagaoka Nobuko, Sonoda Takahiro, and Kuroda Mutsuko played concertos.

The same yearbook also records a “Leo Sirota Ten-Year Residency Commemorative Recital” and its accompanying celebration, held at Hibiya Public Hall in 1940.

From 1941 to the End of the War

According to Yamamoto’s paper, Sirota, who was Jewish, was stripped of his citizenship by Nazi Germany in 1941. In October 1943, the Japan Musical Culture Association decided to have its members stop performing alongside musicians of non-Axis nationality, and Sirota lost his position at Tokyo Music School in March 1944. That same year he was relocated to Karuizawa, where he saw out the end of the war.

Leaving Japan, for the United States

Sources Disagree on the Date He Left Japan

After the war, Sirota left Japan in 1946. The exact date differs between sources. Yamamoto’s paper, based on an October 22, 1946, Asahi Shimbun article, states that the couple departed Japan on the passenger ship Marine Falcon on October 18. The memoir of his daughter, Beate Sirota Gordon, however, states that they departed by plane on May 22. Yamamoto notes that the writer Serizawa Kōjirō’s diary mentions a Sirota concert in September of that same year, and concludes that a May departure is unlikely. A CD liner note cited in the Library of Congress authority record states he moved to America in “October 1946.”

In America, he became a professor of piano at the St. Louis Conservatory of Music. According to a source cited in the authority record, this was in 1947. In 1963 he visited Japan again; according to Otakeshima’s list, he gave a solo recital at Hibiya Public Hall on December 3, and on December 5 he conducted a concert in which his former students played Bach’s concerto for multiple pianos. This event was called the “Professor Leo Sirota Appreciation Recital.” He died in New York in February 1965. The authority record, citing Grove Music Online, gives the date of death as February 24.

Timeline: Sirota and Japan

His Daughter, Beate Sirota Gordon

His daughter, Beate Sirota Gordon (1923–2012, per the National Diet Library’s authority record), spent her childhood in Tokyo with her parents. The Japanese edition of her memoir was published by Kashiwa Shobo in 1995 under the title “1945-nen no Kurisumasu” (“Christmas of 1945”), with the subtitle “The Autobiography of the Woman Who Wrote ‘Gender Equality’ into Japan’s Constitution.”

A Japanese-language account of Sirota’s life is Yamamoto Hisashi’s “The Jewish Pianist Who Loved Japan: Leo Sirota” (Mainichi Shimbunsha, 2004). The relationship between Japan and Ukraine is also covered in our article on Japan-Ukraine relations.