| Often regarded as
the godfather of synthesized music in Japan, and
highly renowned in the field worldwide, Isao Tomita
started his musical career after graduating from
the Keio University in 1955. One of his earliest
efforts included composing music for the Japanese
teams in the 1956 Olympics. However, the composer's
true calling was in cinema, as he started a career
scoring films for Toei in 1958. Tomita stayed
on as a composer at Toei, exclusively working
for the company, up until the late 1960's when
the composer branched out to other movie firms.
He quickly became a popular choice of Katsu Productions
in the early 1970's, working on films such as
Zatoichi: The Festival of Fire (1970)
and Hanzo
the Razor: The Snare (1973). During this
time, Tomita discovered, and embraced, synthesized
music. He became one of the first in Japan to
take on this, relatively, new style of music and
was rewarded for his efforts in 1974 when his
album, Snowflakes are Dancing, was nominated
at the Grammy Awards that same year, making him
the first Japanese musician to be recognized at
the event. That same year, Tomita also conducted
his only score for a Toho produced film, which
was Toshio Masuda and Yoshimitsu Banno's Prophecies
of Nostradamus. The movie was a box office
success, but received unwanted attention from
a member of the "No Nukes" group, who
found the radiation born mutants in the film to
be offensive to survivors of Hiroshima. They submitted
their complaint with the Eirin Board, a organization
in charge of censoring films in Japan, and Toho
eventually pulled, and banned, the movie themselves
to avoid further conflict. Thankfully, Tomita's
work on the film was regarded highly enough that
it was eventually released on soundtrack; in fact,
it has been released several times, even as late
as 2001. By the mid-1970's, the composer had already
acquired a modest cult following, both domestically
and overseas, and continued to release successful
albums while touring the world at different events.
The composer's most recent work includes the Academy
Award nominated Twilight Samurai in 2002
and his The Tale of Genji album in 1999.
|
