The OCAD University community mourns the passing of Nobuo Kubota on September 30, 2025, at the age of 93. Kubota taught at the Ontario College of Art (now OCAD University) from 1970 to 1998 and received an honorary doctorate from the University in 2011.
Born in Vancouver in 1932, Kubota was interned with his family in an internment camp for Japanese Canadians during the Second World War.
Before becoming an artist and educator, Kubota earned a degree in architecture from the University of Toronto and practiced architecture for ten years.
An award-winning multimedia artist and improvisational musician, Kubota was a central figure in Toronto’s avant-garde and experimental music scenes.
He was a co-founder of the Canadian Creative Music Collective (CCMC) in 1974, a group that emerged from the seminal Toronto free-jazz ensemble Artists' Jazz Band.
Along with fellow founding members including Graham Coughtry and Michael Snow, Kubota helped establish The Music Gallery in 1976 as an artist-run performance space. The CCMC performed at the venue twice weekly for many years and, through the Music Gallery Editions record label, released its first six albums.
Kubota published two books, Phonic Slices and Deep Text (both 2001) with Coach House Books.
His work is held in numerous collections including the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Ontario. He was made a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and received the Allied Arts Award from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada.
In 2000, he received the Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award from the Canada Council for the Arts and was a recipient of the Governor General's award for the arts in 2009.
OCAD U extends its condolences to his family, friends and loved ones.
Source: Billboard Canada, York University.
