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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
Goes to the Fire Festival (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 (1974). 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 2019.
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 later work included the
Academy Award nominated Twilight Samurai in 2002 and his The Tale of Genji album in 1999. |
