BIOGRAPHY OF KITARO

Kitaro was born in 1953 as Masanori Takahashi in Toyohashi, Japan. In Highschool he loved Soul and Rhythm & Blues. He learned playing E-Guitar and performed with his band "Albatross" on parties and in clubs. His biggest influence in this time was Otis Redding. "Rhythm and blues has a kind of depth, emotions how can I say it? The audience feels something like same kind of emotions from my music. My music is not rhythm and blues, but it feels like soul.".


His nickname Kitaro was given to him by friends after the main character from the japanese cartoon television series "Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro".

In the early '70s he changed completely to keyboards. He joined the band "Far East Family Band" and toured with them around the world. In Europe he met the german synthesizer musician and Tangerine Dream-cofounder Klaus Schulze. Schulze produced two albums for the band and expanded Kitaro's knowledge of synthesizers.

A quotation from Kitaro gives us his view on synthesizers: "With a synthesizer I could create an ocean, a winter coastline, a summer beach, a whole scene."

In 1976 Kitaro left the "Far East Family Band" and made a long trip throught asia, visiting countries like Laos, China and Thailand. In India he lived for about 6 months in Poona at the (at that time) famous ashram of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.

Back in Japan Kitaro started his solo career in 1977. The first two albums Ten Kai and From the Full Moon Story became cult favorites of fans of the nascent New Age movement. But it was his famous Soundtrack for the NHK series "Silk Road" which brought him the international attention.

He struck a worldwide distribution arrangement with Geffen Records in 1986; in 1987 he collaborated with different musicians, e.g. with Micky Hart (Grateful Dead) and Jon Andersen (Yes) and his record sales soared to 10 million worldwide.

In 1994 he won the Golden Globe Award for his soundtrack for Oliver Stones movie "Heaven & Earth". He was also nominated several times for a Grammy in the category New Age (which he won in 2001 for his album Thinking of You).

Kitaro is a star, but he is very modest. "Nature inspires me. I am only a messenger", he said. "To me, some songs are like clouds, some are like water". Since 1983 his reverence for nature leads Kitaro to annually give thanks to Mother Nature in a special "concert" on Mount Fuji or near his house in Colorado: on the day of August full moon he beats on the Taiko drum from dusk to dawn. Frequently his hands become bloodied, but he continues to pound.

From 1983 till 1990 he was married with his first wife Yuki (they have a son, Ryunosuke, who lives in Japan). They separated because Kitaro worked most time in the United States while she lived and worked in Japan. In the middle of the 90ths Kitaro married Keiko Matsubara, a musician who already played on several of his albums. With her and her son Kitaro lived in Ward, a little town outside Boulder/Colorado (USA) on a 180-acre spread in a big house with his own studio, called "Mochi House". Latest information say that Kitaro and Keiko recently moved to Occidental, a small town north of San Francisco (North California).