KAKO, Takashi

After completing a course of study in the Department of Composition in the postgraduate school at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, Takashi Kakō travelled to France on the French government’s scholarship programme. He studied composition under Olivier Messiaen, one of the giants of contemporary music, at the Paris Conservatoire in pursuit of a career as an orthodox composer, but branched out in 1973 when he made his debut in Paris as a pianist in the field of free jazz. He was unanimously awarded the Prix de Composition from the Conservatoire in 1976.
Since returning to Japan in 1980 he has been composing a wide range of works extending from solo piano pieces to works for orchestra in addition to music for films and documentaries. He has released more than sixty albums of his own performances. His representative works include the piano suite Klee, based on impressions of paintings by Paul Klee, and Is Paris Burning, the theme music for the series of NHK documentaries entitled The Century in Moving Images.
In 2010 he formed the Takashi Kako Quartet, with which he has released the albums Quartet, Quartet II, Quartet III and Suite: The Century in Moving Images from Avex Classics. Active today as a composer and as a pianist, he has been called the ‘poet of the piano’ due to the beauty of his touch on the instrument.
As a composer of film music he was awarded a prize for the Best Artistic Contribution at the 1998 Montreal World Film Festival for his music for The Quarry, directed by Marion Hansel, the film that gained the Grand Prix on that occasion. In Japan he received the Music Award in the Mainichi Film Competition for his music for Takashi Koizumi’s films Amidadō Dayori (Letter from the Mountain, 2002) and The Professor and his Beloved Equation (2006), and the Japan Academy Prize for Outstanding Music for his music for the films Saigo no Chūshingura (2010), directed by Shigemichi Sugita, Amidadō Dayori (2002) and Higurashi no Ki (2014), directed by Takashi Koizumi, and Chiri Tsubaki (The Samurai’s Promise, 2018), directed by Daisaku Kimura.
He received the 68th NHK Broadcasting Culture Award in 2016.
To mark the fiftieth anniversary of his debut in Paris, in 2023 he released a commemorative album featuring his film music entitled Kako Début 50 on the Avex Classics label.

Official website: https://takashikako.com