Akira Tachikawa  Akira Tachikawa () is a Japanese countertenor, described as "one of a very few accomplished Japanese counter-tenors". A 1980 graduate of the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, in which he studied under Kounosuke Watanabe and Ryousuke Hatanaka, he has since obtained work as a singer, particularly in Baroque music in Europe, where he moved in 1986. He has performed with the Bach Collegium Japan under their conductor Masaaki Suzuki. In 1995 he was a soloist in the first volume of Bach Collegium Japan's recording of the complete Bach cantatas on BIS Records. After these performances of the early cantatas BWV 4 and BWV 150 he went on to record other cantatas and the "Magnificat" BWV 243. "Contemporary music:" "Early Music"