Isao Tomita
Encyclopedia
, often known simply as Tomita, is a Japan
ese music composer, regarded as one of the pioneers of electronic music
and space music
, and as one of the most famous producers of analog synthesizer
arrangement
s. In addition to creating note-by-note realizations, Tomita made extensive use of the sound design capabilities of his instrument, using synthesizers to create new artificial sounds to accompany and enhance his electronic realizations of acoustic instruments. He also made effective use of analog music sequencer
s and featured futuristic science fiction
themes, while laying the foundations for synth-pop
music and trance
-like rhythms. He also received four Grammy Award
nominations for his album Snowflakes are Dancing
in 1974.
and spent his early childhood with his father in China
. After returning to Japan, he took private lessons in orchestration and composition while an art history
student at Keio University
, Tokyo
. He graduated in 1955 and became a full-time composer for television, film and theatre. He composed the theme music for the Japanese Olympic gymnastics team for the 1956 Summer Olympics
in Melbourne, Australia.
In 1965, he composed the theme song and incidental music for Osamu Tezuka
's television animated series Jangaru Taitei (Jungle Emperor), released in the USA as Kimba the White Lion
. Bernie Baum
, Bill Giant and Florence Kaye
were the vocalists. In 1966 he wrote a tone poem based on this music with an original video animation synchronized to the tone poem released in 1991. Isao Tomita and Kunio Miyauchi also created the music for the tokusatsu SF/espionage/action TV series Mighty Jack
, which aired in 1968. The same year, he co-founded Group TAC
.
By the late 1960s, Isao turned to electronic music with the impetus of Wendy Carlos
and Robert Moog
's work with synthesisers. Isao acquired a Moog III
synthesizer
and began building his home studio. He eventually realized that synthesizers could be used to create entirely new artificial sounds in addition to mimicking real instruments. His experiments with electronic music would eventually spark a "revolution in synthesizer programming." His first electronic album was Electric Samurai: Switched on Rock, released in Japan in 1972 and in the United States in 1974. The album featured electronic renditions of contemporary rock
and pop
songs, while utilizing speech synthesis
in place of a human voice. He then started arranging Claude Debussy
's classical
pieces for synthesizer and, in 1974, the album Snowflakes are Dancing
was released; it became a worldwide success and was responsible for taking synth programming to new heights. The album's contributions to electronic music included an ambience
resembling a symphony orchestra, the use of reverberation
, the use of phasing
and flanging
to create a spatial audio effect
with stereo
speakers, electronic surround sound
using four speakers, realistic string simulations, portamento
whistles, and abstract bell-like sounds created using ring modulation
. A particularly significant achievement was its polyphonic
sound, which was created without the use of any polyphonic synthesizers (which were not yet commercially released). Tomita created the album's polyphonic sound by recording selections one part at a time, taking 14 months to produce the album. In his early albums, he also made effective use of analog music sequencer
s, which he used for repeated pitch, filter or effects changes. Tomita's modular human whistle sounds would also be copied in the presets of later electronic instruments. His version of "Arabesque No. 1
" was later used as the theme to the astronomy TV series Jack Horkheimer: Star Gazer
(originally titled Star Hustler) seen on most PBS
stations.
He continued to release albums, of which the best known are his arrangements of classics, such as Igor Stravinsky
's The Firebird
, Modest Mussorgsky
's Pictures at an Exhibition
, and Gustav Holst
's The Planets
. Tomita's albums Pictures at an Exhibition (1975), The Firebird Suite (1975) and Holst: The Planets (1976) introduced a new direction that infused classical synth music with dynamic futuristic music, while abandoning the note-by-note approach previously used in synthesized classical music in favour of polyphonic sounds. Holst: The Planets in particular introduced a science fiction space theme
, a connection that had rarely been explored since the 1956 film Forbidden Planet
.
While working on his classical synthesizer albums, Tomita continued composing numerous scores for Japanese television and films including the Zatoichi
television series, two Zatoichi feature films, the Oshi Samurai (Mute Samurai) television series and the Toho science fiction disaster film, Catastrophe 1999, The Prophesies of Nostradamus (US title: Last Days of Planet Earth) in 1974. The latter blends synthesizer performances with pop-rock and orchestral instruments. It and a few other partial and complete scores of the period have been released on LP and later CD over the years in Japan. While not bootlegs, at least some of these releases were issued by film and TV production companies without Tomita's artistic approval.
Tomita and his music are heavily featured in Chris Marker
's 1983 film-essay Sans Soleil.
In 1984, Tomita released Canon of the Three Stars, which featured classical pieces renamed for astronomical objects. For example, the title piece is his version of Pachelbel's Canon in D Major. He credits himself with "The Plasma Symphony Orchestra", which was a computer synthesizer process using the wave forms of electromagnetic emanations from various stars and constellations for the sonic textures of this album.
Tomita has performed a number of outdoor "Sound Cloud" concerts, with speakers surrounding the audience in a "cloud of sound". He gave a big concert in 1984 at the annual contemporary music Ars Electronica
festival in Linz
, Austria
called "Mind of the Universe", live mixing tracks in a glass pyramid
suspended over an audience of 80,000 people. He performed another concert in New York two years later to celebrate the Statue of Liberty
centennial ("Back to the Earth") as well as one in Sydney in 1988 for Australia's bicentennial. The Australian performance was part of a $A7 million gift from Japan to New South Wales, which included the largest ever fireworks display at that time, six fixed sound and lighting systems — one of those on a moored barge in the centre of a bay, the other flown in by Chinook helicopter — for the relevant parts of the show. A fleet of barges with Japanese cultural performances, including kabuki fire drumming, passed by at various times. His most recent Sound Cloud event was in Nagoya, Japan in 1997 featuring guest performances by The Manhattan Transfer
, Ray Charles
, Dionne Warwick
, and Rick Wakeman
.
In the late 1990s, he composed a hybrid orchestra plus synthesizer symphonic fantasy titled The Tale of Genji
inspired by the eponymous old Japanese story. It was performed in concert by symphony orchestras in Tokyo, Los Angeles, and London. A live concert CD version was released in 1999 followed by a studio version in 2000.
In 2001, Tomita collaborated with Walt Disney Company to compose the background atmosphere music for the AquaSphere entrance at the Tokyo DisneySea
theme park outside Tokyo.
His synthesizer score featuring acoustic soloists for the 2002 film won the 2003 Japanese Academy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Music.
The advent of the DVD-Audio
format has allowed Tomita to further pursue his interests in multichannel audio with reworked releases of The Tale of Genji Symphonic Fantasy and The Tomita Planets 2003.
In 2008, his Snowflakes are Dancing played in the background at the Disney World Resort, Epcot, World Showcase, Japan, Bijutzu-kan Gallery.
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese music composer, regarded as one of the pioneers of electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
and space music
Space music
Space music, also called spacemusic, is an umbrella term, synonymous with a segment of New Age Music and Ambient Music, used to describe music that evokes a feeling of contemplative spaciousness. Space music can be found within a wide range of genres. It is particularly associated with ambient, New...
, and as one of the most famous producers of analog synthesizer
Analog synthesizer
An analog or analogue synthesizer is a synthesizer that uses analog circuits and analog computer techniques to generate sound electronically. The earliest analog synthesizers in the 1920s and 1930s such as the Trautonium were built with a variety of vacuum-tube and electro-mechanical technologies...
arrangement
Arrangement
The American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents...
s. In addition to creating note-by-note realizations, Tomita made extensive use of the sound design capabilities of his instrument, using synthesizers to create new artificial sounds to accompany and enhance his electronic realizations of acoustic instruments. He also made effective use of analog music sequencer
Music sequencer
The music sequencer is a device or computer software to record, edit, play back the music, by handling note and performance information in several forms, typically :...
s and featured futuristic science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
themes, while laying the foundations for synth-pop
Synthpop
Synthpop is a genre of popular music that first became prominent in the 1980s, in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic art rock, disco and particularly the "Kraut rock" of...
music and trance
Trance music
Trance is a genre of electronic dance music that developed in the 1990s.:251 It is generally characterized by a tempo of between 125 and 150 bpm,:252 repeating melodic synthesizer phrases, and a musical form that builds up and breaks down throughout a track...
-like rhythms. He also received four Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
nominations for his album Snowflakes are Dancing
Snowflakes are Dancing
Snowflakes Are Dancing is an electronic music album by Isao Tomita, recorded in 1974 and first released as a Quadradisc in April. The album consists entirely of Tomita's arrangements of Claude Debussy's "tone paintings", performed by Tomita on a Moog synthesizer...
in 1974.
Biography
Tomita was born in TokyoTokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
and spent his early childhood with his father in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. After returning to Japan, he took private lessons in orchestration and composition while an art history
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...
student at Keio University
Keio University
,abbreviated as Keio or Keidai , is a Japanese university located in Minato, Tokyo. It is known as the oldest institute of higher education in Japan. Founder Fukuzawa Yukichi originally established it as a school for Western studies in 1858 in Edo . It has eleven campuses in Tokyo and Kanagawa...
, Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
. He graduated in 1955 and became a full-time composer for television, film and theatre. He composed the theme music for the Japanese Olympic gymnastics team for the 1956 Summer Olympics
1956 Summer Olympics
The 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XVI Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was held in Melbourne, Australia, in 1956, with the exception of the equestrian events, which could not be held in Australia due to quarantine regulations...
in Melbourne, Australia.
In 1965, he composed the theme song and incidental music for Osamu Tezuka
Osamu Tezuka
was a Japanese cartoonist, manga artist, animator, producer, activist and medical doctor, although he never practiced medicine. Born in Osaka Prefecture, he is best known as the creator of Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion and Black Jack...
's television animated series Jangaru Taitei (Jungle Emperor), released in the USA as Kimba the White Lion
Kimba the White Lion
, known in the United States as Kimba the White Lion, is an anime series from the 1960s. Created by Osamu Tezuka and based on his manga of the same title which began publication in 1950, it was the first color animated television series created in Japan. The manga was first published in serialized...
. Bernie Baum
Bernie Baum
Bernie Baum was a songwriter who worked extensively with Elvis Presley. He grew up in New York City and later worked with Harvey Zimmerman and Florence Kaye. The majority of their songs were used in Presley's musicals. Their work was also credited in the American version of Kimba the White Lion...
, Bill Giant and Florence Kaye
Florence Kaye
Florence Kaye was a member of a song-writing trio that also included Harvey Zimmerman and Bernie Baum. She was born in New York City. She performed a radio show in Georgia and entertained troops for United Service Organizations...
were the vocalists. In 1966 he wrote a tone poem based on this music with an original video animation synchronized to the tone poem released in 1991. Isao Tomita and Kunio Miyauchi also created the music for the tokusatsu SF/espionage/action TV series Mighty Jack
Mighty Jack
was a tokusatsu SF/espionage/action TV series. Created by Japanese effects wizard Eiji Tsuburaya, the show was produced by Tsuburaya Productions and was broadcast on Fuji TV from April 6, 1968 to June 29, 1968, with a total of 13 one-hour episodes...
, which aired in 1968. The same year, he co-founded Group TAC
Group TAC
Group TAC was a Japanese animation and computer graphics studio located in Shibuya, Tokyo, and founded in 1968. They have worked on movies, videos, TV shows, and commercials, and have contributed to all stages of the process, including planning, production, sound effects, and so on...
.
By the late 1960s, Isao turned to electronic music with the impetus of Wendy Carlos
Wendy Carlos
Wendy Carlos is an American composer and electronic musician. Carlos first came to notice in the late 1960s with recordings made on the Moog synthesizer, then a relatively new and unknown instrument; most notable were LPs of synthesized Bach and the soundtrack for Stanley Kubrick's film A...
and Robert Moog
Robert Moog
Robert Arthur Moog , commonly called Bob Moog was an American pioneer of electronic music, best known as the inventor of the Moog synthesizer.-Life:...
's work with synthesisers. Isao acquired a Moog III
Moog modular synthesizer
Moog modular synthesizer refers to any of a number of monophonic analog modular synthesizers designed by the late electronic instrument pioneer Dr. Robert Moog and manufactured by R.A Moog Co...
synthesizer
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
and began building his home studio. He eventually realized that synthesizers could be used to create entirely new artificial sounds in addition to mimicking real instruments. His experiments with electronic music would eventually spark a "revolution in synthesizer programming." His first electronic album was Electric Samurai: Switched on Rock, released in Japan in 1972 and in the United States in 1974. The album featured electronic renditions of contemporary rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
and pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
songs, while utilizing speech synthesis
Speech synthesis
Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware...
in place of a human voice. He then started arranging Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
's classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
pieces for synthesizer and, in 1974, the album Snowflakes are Dancing
Snowflakes are Dancing
Snowflakes Are Dancing is an electronic music album by Isao Tomita, recorded in 1974 and first released as a Quadradisc in April. The album consists entirely of Tomita's arrangements of Claude Debussy's "tone paintings", performed by Tomita on a Moog synthesizer...
was released; it became a worldwide success and was responsible for taking synth programming to new heights. The album's contributions to electronic music included an ambience
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
resembling a symphony orchestra, the use of reverberation
Reverberation
Reverberation is the persistence of sound in a particular space after the original sound is removed. A reverberation, or reverb, is created when a sound is produced in an enclosed space causing a large number of echoes to build up and then slowly decay as the sound is absorbed by the walls and air...
, the use of phasing
Phasing
In the compositional technique phasing, the same part is played on two musical instruments, in steady but not identical tempo...
and flanging
Flanging
Flanging is an audio effect produced by mixing two identical signals together, with one signal delayed by a small and gradually changing period, usually smaller than 20 milliseconds. This produces a swept comb filter effect: peaks and notches are produced in the resultant frequency spectrum,...
to create a spatial audio effect
3D audio effect
3D audio effects are a group of sound effects that attempt to widen the stereo image produced by two loudspeakers or stereo headphones, or to create the illusion of sound sources placed anywhere in 3 dimensional space, including behind, above or below the listener.There are several types of 3D...
with stereo
Stereophonic sound
The term Stereophonic, commonly called stereo, sound refers to any method of sound reproduction in which an attempt is made to create an illusion of directionality and audible perspective...
speakers, electronic surround sound
Surround sound
Surround sound encompasses a range of techniques such as for enriching the sound reproduction quality of an audio source with audio channels reproduced via additional, discrete speakers. Surround sound is characterized by a listener location or sweet spot where the audio effects work best, and...
using four speakers, realistic string simulations, portamento
Portamento
Portamento is a musical term originated from the Italian expression "portamento della voce" , denoting from the beginning of the 17th century a vocal slide between two pitches and its emulation by members of the violin family and certain wind instruments, and is sometimes used...
whistles, and abstract bell-like sounds created using ring modulation
Ring modulation
Ring modulation is a signal-processing effect in electronics, an implementation of amplitude modulation or frequency mixing, performed by multiplying two signals, where one is typically a sine-wave or another simple waveform. It is referred to as "ring" modulation because the analog circuit of...
. A particularly significant achievement was its polyphonic
Polyphony
In music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ....
sound, which was created without the use of any polyphonic synthesizers (which were not yet commercially released). Tomita created the album's polyphonic sound by recording selections one part at a time, taking 14 months to produce the album. In his early albums, he also made effective use of analog music sequencer
Music sequencer
The music sequencer is a device or computer software to record, edit, play back the music, by handling note and performance information in several forms, typically :...
s, which he used for repeated pitch, filter or effects changes. Tomita's modular human whistle sounds would also be copied in the presets of later electronic instruments. His version of "Arabesque No. 1
Arabesques (Debussy)
The Two Arabesques , L. 66, is a pair of arabesques composed by Claude Debussy. They are two of Debussy's earliest works, composed between the years 1888 and 1891, when he was still in his twenties....
" was later used as the theme to the astronomy TV series Jack Horkheimer: Star Gazer
Jack Horkheimer: Star Gazer
Star Gazers is a five-minute astronomy show on public television previously hosted by Jack Foley Horkheimer, executive director of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium...
(originally titled Star Hustler) seen on most PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
stations.
He continued to release albums, of which the best known are his arrangements of classics, such as Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
's The Firebird
The Firebird
The Firebird is a 1910 ballet created by the composer Igor Stravinsky and choreographer Michel Fokine. The ballet is based on Russian folk tales of the magical glowing bird of the same name that is both a blessing and a curse to its captor....
, Modest Mussorgsky
Modest Mussorgsky
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was a Russian composer, one of the group known as 'The Five'. He was an innovator of Russian music in the romantic period...
's Pictures at an Exhibition
Pictures at an Exhibition
Pictures at an Exhibition is a suite in ten movements composed for piano by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky in 1874.The suite is Mussorgsky's most famous piano composition, and has become a showpiece for virtuoso pianists...
, and Gustav Holst
Gustav Holst
Gustav Theodore Holst was an English composer. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets....
's The Planets
The Planets
The Planets, Op. 32, is a seven-movement orchestral suite by the English composer Gustav Holst, written between 1914 and 1916. Each movement of the suite is named after a planet of the Solar System and its corresponding astrological character as defined by Holst...
. Tomita's albums Pictures at an Exhibition (1975), The Firebird Suite (1975) and Holst: The Planets (1976) introduced a new direction that infused classical synth music with dynamic futuristic music, while abandoning the note-by-note approach previously used in synthesized classical music in favour of polyphonic sounds. Holst: The Planets in particular introduced a science fiction space theme
Space music
Space music, also called spacemusic, is an umbrella term, synonymous with a segment of New Age Music and Ambient Music, used to describe music that evokes a feeling of contemplative spaciousness. Space music can be found within a wide range of genres. It is particularly associated with ambient, New...
, a connection that had rarely been explored since the 1956 film Forbidden Planet
Forbidden Planet
Forbidden Planet is a 1956 science fiction film directed by Fred M. Wilcox, with a screenplay by Cyril Hume. It stars Leslie Nielsen, Walter Pidgeon, and Anne Francis. The characters and its setting have been compared to those in William Shakespeare's The Tempest, and its plot contains certain...
.
While working on his classical synthesizer albums, Tomita continued composing numerous scores for Japanese television and films including the Zatoichi
Zatoichi
is a fictional character featured in one of Japan's longest running series of films and a television series set in the Edo period. The character, a blind masseur and swordmaster, was created by novelist . This originally minor character was developed for the screen by Daiei Studios and actor...
television series, two Zatoichi feature films, the Oshi Samurai (Mute Samurai) television series and the Toho science fiction disaster film, Catastrophe 1999, The Prophesies of Nostradamus (US title: Last Days of Planet Earth) in 1974. The latter blends synthesizer performances with pop-rock and orchestral instruments. It and a few other partial and complete scores of the period have been released on LP and later CD over the years in Japan. While not bootlegs, at least some of these releases were issued by film and TV production companies without Tomita's artistic approval.
Tomita and his music are heavily featured in Chris Marker
Chris Marker
Chris Marker is a French writer, photographer, documentary film director, multimedia artist and film essayist. His best known films are La jetée , A Grin Without a Cat , Sans Soleil and AK , an essay film on the Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa...
's 1983 film-essay Sans Soleil.
In 1984, Tomita released Canon of the Three Stars, which featured classical pieces renamed for astronomical objects. For example, the title piece is his version of Pachelbel's Canon in D Major. He credits himself with "The Plasma Symphony Orchestra", which was a computer synthesizer process using the wave forms of electromagnetic emanations from various stars and constellations for the sonic textures of this album.
Tomita has performed a number of outdoor "Sound Cloud" concerts, with speakers surrounding the audience in a "cloud of sound". He gave a big concert in 1984 at the annual contemporary music Ars Electronica
Ars Electronica
Ars Electronica is an organization based in Linz, Austria, founded in 1979 around a festival for art, technology and society that was part of the International Bruckner Festival. Herbert W. Franke is one of its founders. It became its own festival and a yearly event in 1986. Its director until 1995...
festival in Linz
Linz
Linz is the third-largest city of Austria and capital of the state of Upper Austria . It is located in the north centre of Austria, approximately south of the Czech border, on both sides of the river Danube. The population of the city is , and that of the Greater Linz conurbation is about...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
called "Mind of the Universe", live mixing tracks in a glass pyramid
Pyramid
A pyramid is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge at a single point. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilateral, or any polygon shape, meaning that a pyramid has at least three triangular surfaces...
suspended over an audience of 80,000 people. He performed another concert in New York two years later to celebrate the Statue of Liberty
Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886...
centennial ("Back to the Earth") as well as one in Sydney in 1988 for Australia's bicentennial. The Australian performance was part of a $A7 million gift from Japan to New South Wales, which included the largest ever fireworks display at that time, six fixed sound and lighting systems — one of those on a moored barge in the centre of a bay, the other flown in by Chinook helicopter — for the relevant parts of the show. A fleet of barges with Japanese cultural performances, including kabuki fire drumming, passed by at various times. His most recent Sound Cloud event was in Nagoya, Japan in 1997 featuring guest performances by The Manhattan Transfer
The Manhattan Transfer
The Manhattan Transfer is an American vocal music group. There have been two manifestations of the group, with Tim Hauser being the only person to be part of both...
, Ray Charles
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
, Dionne Warwick
Dionne Warwick
Dionne Warwick is an American singer, actress and TV show host, who became a United Nations Global Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization, and a United States Ambassador of Health....
, and Rick Wakeman
Rick Wakeman
Richard Christopher Wakeman is an English keyboard player, composer and songwriter best known for being the former keyboardist in the progressive rock band Yes...
.
In the late 1990s, he composed a hybrid orchestra plus synthesizer symphonic fantasy titled The Tale of Genji
The Tale of Genji
is a classic work of Japanese literature attributed to the Japanese noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu in the early 11th century, around the peak of the Heian period. It is sometimes called the world's first novel, the first modern novel, the first psychological novel or the first novel still to be...
inspired by the eponymous old Japanese story. It was performed in concert by symphony orchestras in Tokyo, Los Angeles, and London. A live concert CD version was released in 1999 followed by a studio version in 2000.
In 2001, Tomita collaborated with Walt Disney Company to compose the background atmosphere music for the AquaSphere entrance at the Tokyo DisneySea
Tokyo DisneySea
is a 176-acre theme park at the Tokyo Disney Resort located in Urayasu, Chiba, Japan, just outside Tokyo. It opened on September 4, 2001. It is owned by The Oriental Land Company, which licenses the theme from The Walt Disney Company. Tokyo DisneySea attracted an estimated 12 million visitors in...
theme park outside Tokyo.
His synthesizer score featuring acoustic soloists for the 2002 film won the 2003 Japanese Academy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Music.
The advent of the DVD-Audio
DVD-Audio
DVD-Audio is a digital format for delivering high-fidelity audio content on a DVD. DVD-Audio is not intended to be a video delivery format and is not the same as video DVDs containing concert films or music videos....
format has allowed Tomita to further pursue his interests in multichannel audio with reworked releases of The Tale of Genji Symphonic Fantasy and The Tomita Planets 2003.
In 2008, his Snowflakes are Dancing played in the background at the Disney World Resort, Epcot, World Showcase, Japan, Bijutzu-kan Gallery.
Discography
- 1974 Snowflakes Are DancingSnowflakes are DancingSnowflakes Are Dancing is an electronic music album by Isao Tomita, recorded in 1974 and first released as a Quadradisc in April. The album consists entirely of Tomita's arrangements of Claude Debussy's "tone paintings", performed by Tomita on a Moog synthesizer...
- 1975 Pictures at an Exhibition (version of Pictures at an ExhibitionPictures at an ExhibitionPictures at an Exhibition is a suite in ten movements composed for piano by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky in 1874.The suite is Mussorgsky's most famous piano composition, and has become a showpiece for virtuoso pianists...
by MussorgskyMussorgskyMussorgsky can refer to:*The Mussorgsky family of Russian nobility;*Modest Mussorgsky, a Russian composer belonging to that family.*Mussorgsky , a 1950 Soviet film about the composer...
) - 1975 Firebird (version of The FirebirdThe FirebirdThe Firebird is a 1910 ballet created by the composer Igor Stravinsky and choreographer Michel Fokine. The ballet is based on Russian folk tales of the magical glowing bird of the same name that is both a blessing and a curse to its captor....
by Stravinsky) - 1976 The Planets (version of The PlanetsThe PlanetsThe Planets, Op. 32, is a seven-movement orchestral suite by the English composer Gustav Holst, written between 1914 and 1916. Each movement of the suite is named after a planet of the Solar System and its corresponding astrological character as defined by Holst...
by Gustav HolstGustav HolstGustav Theodore Holst was an English composer. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets....
) - 1977 Sound Creature
- 1978 Kosmos (originally released under the title Space Fantasy)
- 1978 Bermuda Triangle (inspired by the Bermuda TriangleBermuda TriangleThe Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is a region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean where a number of aircraft and surface vessels allegedly disappeared under mysterious circumstances....
) (5 channel stereo recording) - 1979 Greatest Hits (compilation album)
- 1979 Daphnis et Chloé (Bolero)
- 1981 Greatest Hits Volume 2 (compilation album)
- 1982 Grand Canyon
- 1984 Dawn Chorus (Canon of the Three Stars)
- 1984 Best of Tomita (compilation)
- 1984 Space Walk - Impressions Of An Astronaut (compilation album)
- 1985 Mind of the Universe - Live at Linz
- 1988 Back to the Earth - Live in New York
- 1989 Misty Kid of Wind
- 1992 Storm from the East
- 1993 School
- 1994 The First Emperor (as musical supervisor)
- 1994 Shin Nihon Kikou
- 1994 Nasca Fantasy (supporting KodōKodo (taiko group)is a professional taiko drumming troupe. Based on Sado Island, Japan, they have had a role in popularizing taiko drumming, both in Japan and abroad...
) - 1996 Bach Fantasy
See also
- Hideki MatsutakeHideki MatsutakeHideki Matsutake is a Japanese composer, arranger, and computer programmer. He is known for his pioneering work in electronic music and particularly music programming, as the assistant of Isao Tomita during the early 1970s and as the "fourth member" of the band Yellow Magic Orchestra during the...
, Tomita's assistant and member of Yellow Magic OrchestraYellow Magic OrchestraSakamoto first worked with Hosono as a member of his live band in 1976, while Takahashi recruited Sakamoto to produce his debut solo recording in 1977 following the split of the Sadistic Mika Band... - Susumu HirasawaSusumu Hirasawais a Japanese electropop artist and composer.In 1972, he enrolled at . From 1972 to 1978, he performed in his first band Mandrake, a progressive rock group influenced by King Crimson and Yes. In 1979 he formed a New Wave synth-rock & techno-pop band called P-Model, along with two former members of...
- Maurice RavelMaurice RavelJoseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
- Haruomi HosonoHaruomi Hosono, also known as Harry Hosono, is a Japanese popular musician, best known internationally as a key member of the rock band Happy End and the pioneering electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra.-Biography:...
- Ryuichi SakamotoRyuichi SakamotoAfter working as a session musician with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi in 1977, the trio formed the internationally successful electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1978. Known for their seminal influence on electronic music, the group helped pioneer electronic genres such as...
- Nobuo UematsuNobuo Uematsuis a Japanese video game composer, best known for scoring the majority of titles in the Final Fantasy series. He is considered as one of the most famous and respected composers in the video game community...
- Patrick MorazPatrick MorazPatrick Philippe Moraz is a progressive rock keyboard player. He is best known as the keyboardist for the progressive rock band Yes, from 1974 to 1976, and the Moody Blues from 1978 to 1991...
- Jean Michel JarreJean Michel JarreJean Michel André Jarre is a French composer, performer and music producer. He is a pioneer in the electronic, ambient and New Age genres, and known as an organiser of outdoor spectacles of his music featuring lights, laser displays, and fireworks.Jarre was raised in Lyon by his mother and...
- KitaroKitaro, better known as , is an award winning Japanese musician, composer and multi-instrumentalist who is regarded as one of the pioneers of new age music.-Early life:...
- Synergy
- VangelisVangelisEvangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou is a Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, pop rock and orchestral music, under the artist name Vangelis...
- KraftwerkKraftwerkKraftwerk is an influential electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, and was fronted by them until Schneider's departure in 2008...
- Tangerine DreamTangerine DreamTangerine Dream is a German electronic music group founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The band has undergone many personnel changes over the years, with Froese being the only continuous member...
- Eloy FritschEloy FritschEloy Fernando Fritsch is the keyboard player and main composer of Brazilian progressive rock band Apocalypse and as a solo artist he creates cosmic New Age music.-History:...
- Suzanne CianiSuzanne CianiSuzanne Ciani is an Italian American pianist and music composer who found early success with innovative electronic music.-Education:...
- New Age MusicNew Age musicNew Age music is music of various styles intended to create artistic inspiration, relaxation, and optimism. It is used by listeners for yoga, massage, meditation, and reading as a method of stress management or to create a peaceful atmosphere in their home or other environments, and is often...
- Francis RimbertFrancis RimbertFrancis Rimbert is a French musician and composer.- Biography :Francis Rimbert started playing classical piano when he was 5 years old. At the conservatory, he studied harmony, counterpoint, the fugue and orchestral leading...
- Keith EmersonKeith EmersonKeith Noel Emerson is an English keyboard player and composer. Formerly a member of the Keith Emerson Trio, John Brown's Bodies, The T-Bones, V.I.P.s, P.P. Arnold's backing band, and The Nice , he was a founder of Emerson, Lake & Palmer , one of the early supergroups, in 1970...