Yasuto Tanaka was born in Wakayama City, Japan in 1964.
While attending the Kunitachi College of Music, he won 2nd prize in the 1st Japan Wind & Percussion Competition and 1st prize in the 4th Japan Wind & Percussion Competition. Mr. Tanaka held his Tokyo debut in 1990 at Tokyo Bunka Kaikan. Since then, he has been engaged in a wide range of activities such as recitals at home and abroad. As a soloist, he has performed with many orchestras such as the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Kanagawa Philharmonic Orchestra, the Sapporo Symphony Orchestra, the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Sendai Philharmonic Orchestra. Since 2000, he has enthusiastically performed recitals and outreach concerts as an artist of the Public Hall Revitalization Project sponsored by Regional Creation, and in 2003, he received the Kinokuni Art New Face Award from Wakayama Prefecture.
An active recording artist, his solo albums include Wind Instrument Solo Songbook Saxophone (1991, Columbia Japan), Rhapsody (1995, EMI Japan), Saxophone (1997, EMI Japan), Gershwin Cocktail (2003, Yusei Publishing Co., Ltd.) Morricone Paradise (2012, EMI Japan), and others. In addition, he has been active as a member of the saxophone quartet Trouvère Quartet, which has released more than ten albums so far. Trouvére received Grand Prize in the record category of the Agency for Cultural Affairs Arts Festival in 2001.
Mr. Tanaka currently serves as a Concert Master for the Toyko Kosei Wind Orchestra, and serves as a visiting professor at several institutions, such as the Kunitachi College of Music, Aichi University of the Arts, Toho Gakuen College Lecturer, Showa College of Music, Sapporo Otani University, and Nagoya Music University.