School of Creative Arts

Achievements and Distinctions

Yo Tomita (b.1961) is a scholar known internationally for his work on the manuscript sources of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach (esp. the Well-Tempered Clavier II), the Bach Bibliography and musicological font, Bach.

He graduated from the Musashino Academia Musicae in Tokyo specializing in piano and completed an MMus in performance at Leeds University and thereafter PhD in musicology. He initially joined the staff at Queen's in March 1995 as Research Fellow. He was reappointed as Lecturer in 2000, promoted to Reader in 2001 and to Professor in 2007.

Since 2000, he has served as member of the organising committee of the Biennial International Conference on Baroque Music, and will chair the 14th Conference in July 2010 to be held in Queen's. In 2005, he joined the editorial board of the Journal of Musicological Research. In 2006 he became the trustee member of the Bach Network UK.

Research Interests

Bach Studies (in particular the Well-Tempered Clavier II ), manuscript studies, the pedagogical aspects of piano education, text-critical analysis using Artificial Intelligence techniques, and the development of computer software and tools for musicology.

Current Work

The WTC II is widely regarded as one of the most important works in western music. Many composers of later generations were influenced by this work. The accounts of Beethoven and Mozart are well-documented; both studied this work from a manuscript copy, as it was in this form that it was circulated before its publication at the beginning of the 19th century. Despite its exceptional popularity, we are still unable to establish fully the final text intended by the composer, let alone the texts that were available to the pupils of subsequent generations. This makes it very difficult to conduct an accurate assessment of its influence it had on the musicians.

Having published the critical edition of the work from G. Henle (April 2007), Professor Tomita is currently working on the following projects:

• a two-volume monograph for Ashgate Publishing, which is a joint project with Professor Richard Rastall. The book attempts to explore whether there is any significant evidence in the surviving manuscript sources of J. S. Bach's WTC II from which one can learn hitherto unknown facts that illuminate the origin and the reception of the work.
• a joint research project on data mining on the text-critical information using Artificial Intelligence techniques with Professor Tsutomu Fujinami (JAIST Hokuriku, Japan) using the data previously published (Leeds, 1995). Having given a joint paper at International Musicological Society conference in Leuven in August 2002, Professors Fujinami and Tomita plan to make an online edition of WTC II that allows user to choose specific tradition of sources in the near future.

Selected Publications

• International Symposium: Understanding Bach's M-minor Mass. Discussion Book 1 and 2, edited by Yo Tomita, Elise Crean, Ian Mills and Tanja Kovacevic (Queen's University Belfast: School of Music and Sonic Arts, 2007), 511p
• "'Most ingenious, most learned, and yet practicable work': The English Reception of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century seen through the Editions Published in London", The Piano in Nineteenth-Century British Culture: Essays on Instruments, Performers and Repertoire, eds. Therese Ellsworth and Susan Wollenberg (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), pp. 33-67. [ISBN-10: 0754661431; ISBN-13: 978-0754661436]
• "Bach and Dresden: A New Hypothesis on the Origin of the Goldberg Variations (BWV 988)", Music and Theology: Essays in Honor of Robin A. Leaver, ed. Daniel Zager (Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2006), pp. 169-192 [ISBN 0810854147]
• "Anna Magdalena as Bach's Copyist", Understanding Bach, ii (2007), pp. 59-76
• "The dawn of the English Bach movement manifested in Sources of the '48'". In: The English Bach Awakening: Knowledge of J. S. Bach and his Music in England 1750–1830, ed. Michael Kassler (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), pp. 35-167 [ISBN 1-84014-666-4]
• "Pursuit of Perfection: Stages of Revisions reflected in the Wesley/Horn '48'", ditto, pp. 341-77
• "Samuel Wesley as Analyst of Bach fugues", ditto, pp. 379-402
• "Bach's Credo in England: an early history"Irish Musical Studies, viii (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2004), pp. 205-227. In: Bach Studies from Dublin: Selected Papers from the Ninth Biennial Conference on Baroque Music, held in Trinity College Dublin, 12-16 July 2000. Irish Musical Studies, volume 8.Edited by Anne Leahy and Yo Tomita (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2004), 272p
• Fugal Composition: A Guide to the Study of Bach's '48' by Joseph Groocock, Edited by Yo Tomita (Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing, 2003) xiii+230p

Click here for a longer list of publication and conference papers

Research Grants

Arts and Humanities Research Board (2000-2001): £770 for "Recent rediscovery of sources of J S Bach’s canons and Credo from the B-Minor Mass and their significance and roles in the musical life in the late eighteenth century England"
Arts and Humanities Research Council (2002-2003): £5000 for "The sources of the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II"
Arts and Humanities Research Council (2006-2008): £15,957 for "Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II -- Composition, Revision and Reception"

Future Research

A collaborative project "Nineteenth-Century Bach Reception" Study Group in Bach Network UK to compile a list of resources consisting of manuscript copies, printed editions, concert programmes, advertisements and reviews that provide a new foundation for further research. The group will also provide opportunities to discuss their individual projects both online and at BNUK meetings.

A joint project with Professor Robin Leaver on the Choralbuch of Bach's last pupil, Johann Christian Kittel, with special emphasis on tracing the methods of Bach's teaching using chorales.

Research Students

Elise Crean, Ian Mills, Alison Dunlop, Tanja Kovacevic, Jennifer Kleeman 

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