Born in Beppu in 1954. Yamauchi started playing sax and improvising while a university student in Matsuyama. Simultaneously with his performance activity, he was organizing concerts in Matsuyama for musicians such as Milford Graves and Derek Bailey on their first tours in Japan. Yamauchi subsequently went to work for a company in Oita while continuing his musical activities there. In around 1977 he also took up mountain skiing and fishing. On the basis of these experiences he became a full-time musician in 2002, and the adventure continues. Salmo sax, his original, one-of-a-kind musical style, is created from the reverberation of sound itself and from cellular-level communication. Yamauchi travels the world performing mainly solo sax concerts. He formed the Salmo Sax Ensemble in 2008, Sagaing in 2016, and Furufuru in 2018. Yamauchi's films HoFuNeM (2012), HaRuLi (2014) and HuuA (2017) were finalists in international film festivals in a number of countries. Yamauchi has released over a dozen CDs. He is currently developing and expanding the Salmo world.
Katsura Yamauchi on the Ftarri, Hitorri, Meenna, and Improvised Music from Japan labels