Intuitive Music

Tomita

Born in Tokyo in 1932, Isao Tomita is one of the most legendary electronic artists from the 70’s who has built a reputation as a synthesist and electronic performer.

Isao Tomita moved to China with his father when he was 3 and lived in Peking for five years. Back in Japan, he studied art at Keio University, Tokyo, and also took private lessons in orchestration and composition. In 1955, Isao Tomita graduated from college and his interest in music and electronics led him to engage private teachers. His early compostition “Wind Mills” was selected by the Japan Federation of Choral Organizations and was used in 1956 by the Japanese Gymnastics Olympic Team at the Summer Olympics in Australia. Hhe started a carrer as a composer for films, theatre and television since.

During the late 60’s, Tomita started a long term love-affair with the new electronic music world, influenced by the early works of Wendy Carlos. This way, he started building his own electronic studio at home after acquiring his first Moog III synthesiser. In 1970, he was committed to provide the music for the Toshiba Hall for the 1970 Expo. Three years later, he founded “Plasma Music” dedicated to the synthesis experimentation to become an eminence in analog and modular synthesis. His debut album in 1974 ‘Snowflakes are Dancing’ -an interpretation on synthesizer of the music of Claude Debussy- was at a time when awareness was still increasing about the use of the instrument. The album reached the top 50’s of the pop charts and received 4 nominations for Grammy awards in 1974. In that same year, he also composed music for the Japanese film Last Days of Planet Earth. He was also commissioned to compose the music for the Japanese Government Hall at the 1975 Okinawa Marine Expo.

Tomita has released a series of albums based on electronic versions of classical compossers, including Igor Stravinsky’s “Firebird Suite” (1975), Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” (1975), Gustav Holst’s “The Planets” (1976), Maurice Ravel’s “Daphnis et Chloé” (1979) and J.S. Bach’s “Fantasy” (1996).

Since 1982, he focused his work in digital synthesis and MIDI technology, in his own Casio Cosmo system. In 1984, Tomita performed at the annual contemporary music “Sound Cloud” performance in Linz, Austria called “Mind of the Universe”, where he played instruments in a glass pyramid suspended over an audience of 80,000 people.