Isao Tomita, composer and synthesizer artist, died May 5, 2016 of chronic cardiac failure at 2:51 p.m. at Tokyo Metropolitan Hiroo Hospital.
He collapsed around noon in his home and was taken to the hospital, where he passed away with family at his bedside.
Private funeral ceremonies attended only by family took place on May 7th and 8th.
We announce this news with great sadness.
Tomita started his career as a composer for Nippon Columbia Co.,Ltd where he composed numerous works,
including music for the first NHK Taiga drama and animation of Osamu Tezuka.
In the 70’s, he was among the first to introduce the analogue synthesizer to Japan
and released numerous ambitious albums like “Snowflakes Are Dancing” and “The Planets.”
He gained international recognition as the first Japanese artist nominated for a Grammy Award in the USA.
Recently, he released “Symphony Ihatov,” featuring virtual singer “Hatsune Miku” as soloist,
having many performances at home and abroad with much popular success.
Just before his death, he was preparing the performance of his new work “Dr. Coppelius,” planned for November of this year.
So sad. The keyboard heroes who inspired me in my youth are all dropping of the branch one by one. Jon Lord, Rick Wright, Edgar Froese, Keith… Please stick around a while with us Rick Wakeman and Tony Banks, you grumpy old sods.
While I absolutely loved his incredible musicality with the Moog, I appreciated even more his indelible sense of humor when realizing the various pieces of music he tackled over the years.
He made the Moog chirp like tiny chicks, made it sing nonsensical and hilarious “Boo-Baas”, created aliens laughing together over a shared joke, made mules clip-clop and gallop on the trail, and made it beautifully whistle with as much emotion as any professional human whistler ever could.
On the back of one of the early albums (which I eagerly devoured as they became available) he talked about how the synthesizer was such a new instrument that it would take time for any virtuosos to become familiar enough with it to make themselves known.
Even back then, I felt that he was already one of those virtuosos, and he just continued to expand the boundaries of musical expression as time went by. In Tomita’s hands the Moog went from being a collection of interesting circuits to a soulful, expressive and beautifully amazing instrument.
His efforts made the world a more magical place for me and many, many others.
Thank you sincerely for all of the wonderful music Mr. Tomita.
Safe Journey.
This makes me really sad - never a huge fan but my dad had the Firebird LP, and I knew the Arabesque #1 from the Star Hustler tv show without realizing it was Tomita. I’ve since picked up several of them on the Japanese LP-sleeve CD series.
