Takeshi Nishimoto is a classically-trained guitarist

Guitarist

A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...

 and composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 who is conversant with European, Northern Indian, and American jazz classical traditions. In addition to collaborations with diverse artists sitar

Sitar

The 'Tablaman' is a plucked stringed instrument predominantly used in Hindustani classical music, where it has been ubiquitous since the Middle Ages...

 master Rahul Sakyaputra to I'm Not a Gun

I'm Not a Gun

I'm Not a Gun is an electronica/ instrumental pop project of John Tejada and Takeshi Nishimoto.-Discography:*Everything At Once, released via City Centre Offices *Our Lives on Wednesdays, released via City Centre Offices...

 associate John Tejada

John Tejada

Normally associated with his peers in techno from Detroit, Europe and elsewhere, John Tejada has embraced electronic music as a personal frontier, expanding on his resume as a techno recording artist as producer, remixer, DJ, and label owner...

, Nishimoto has also performed extensively as a solo artist.

Background

Nishimoto relocated to the United States and enrolled in the guitar program at the University of Southern California

University of Southern California

The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

 Thornton School of Music

USC Thornton School of Music

The University of Southern California Thornton School of Music, founded in 1884 and dedicated in 1999, is one of the premier music schools in the United States...

. He received classical training from some of the world's premiere guitar players including James Smith, Scott Tennant

Scott Tennant

Scott Tennant is a Grammy Award-winning American classical guitarist. He is a member of the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet and is the author of the Pumping Nylon series of instructional books, repertoire supplements, and DVD....

, William Kanengiser

William Kanengiser

William Kanengiser is a Grammy Award-winning classical guitarist. He is one of the founding members of the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet .Kanengiser holds a Bachelor of Music and Master of Music from the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California, where he also serves as a...

, and Brian Head

Brian Head (composer)

Brian Head is an American composer, guitarist, and music theory and composition professor.He performs frequently as a soloist and collaboratively with numerous groups, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Opera, inauthentica, Jacaranda and Xtet. His compositions have been...

. In addition to European classical music, Nishimoto also explored jazz with Joe Diorio

Joe Diorio

Joseph Louis Diorio is an American jazz guitarist. He has performed with legends of jazz like Sonny Stitt, Eddie Harris, Ira Sullivan, Stan Getz, Pat Metheny, Horace Silver, and Freddie Hubbard...

 and David Oaks. He has also had Pepe Romero

Pepé Romero

Pepe Romero is a world-renowned classical and flamenco guitarist. He is particularly famous for his outstanding technique and colorful musical interpretations on the instrument....

 as an instructor, playing in four of his master classes.

Puerto Rican luthier

Luthier

A luthier is someone who makes or repairs lutes and other string instruments. In the United States, the term is used interchangeably with a term for the specialty of each maker, such as violinmaker, guitar maker, lute maker, etc...

 and musician Abe Rivera has deemed Nishimoto worthy to play his instruments, which are now made only for a handful of guitarists. Nishimoto also plays a 1998 "Kasha/Schneider" Concert Classical Guitar by Boaz Elkayam and George Majkowski, built according to the designs of the late Richard Schneider

Richard Schneider

Richard Schneider was a German football manager. He is most notable for being in charge of 1. FC Kaiserslautern during the 1950s, winning two German football championships with the club, and appearing in two further finals as runners-up. He left the club in 1961 and became the manager at Preußen...

.

He moved to Berlin, Germany in June 2005.

Releases

In 2007 Nishimoto released the album Monologue consisting of all acoustic guitar

Acoustic guitar

An acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...

 pieces.

External links

• Official site
• Takeshi Nishimoto on MySpace
  MySpace
  Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....