Lydia
More Music,More Happiness
Kitahara Eiji
President of Lydia Corporation
Composer and Arranger
Writer on Jazz
Visiting Professor of Osaka University of Arts
Kitahara Eiji was born in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. He began to practice playing the trombone in his junior high school days. He entered Waseda University and belonged to the Modern Jazz Club and played the alto saxophone. Soon he performed as a professional player while his university days. He studied the jazz theory, and the arrangement theory under Mr. Sato Masahiko, a famous jazz pianist and an arranger, at ANN School of Music. Then he studied harmonics of classical music and contemporary music harmonics.
After graduation from Waseda University, he gave live performances of jazz, modern music and electronics for a short period. After that, he turned to a composer and an arranger.
Composition, Arrangement and Music Production
He wrote arrangements for big band on a stage. The first professional composition was a song in the play, “Waga Tomo Hitler, or My Friend, Hitler” written by Mishima Yukio, produced by Shochiku in 1975.Other works were music in the radio drama, “Yasei No Shomei, or Proof of Wildness” produced by Nippon Broadcast System, theme music and jingles of “All-Night Nippon”, “Tamori’s Request by Telephone” produced by Nippon Broadcast System, and “Love Station” produced by Tokyo FM and more.
Examples of music in commercials were “Suntory Old”, “Osaka Gas”, “National Hot-carpet”, “Kirin Vegetable Juice” “Higeta Soy Sauce”, “Ito-ki”, “Tommy”, “Toho Gas”, “NTT” and more. He was also in charge of Candy Asada’s album made by Warner Pioneer as a producer, composer and an arranger.
He established a limited company Lydia Corporation which produced music in 1988. The company was reorganized and renamed Lydia Corporation in 1994. He formed a CD label “hue records” and released a techno album “Fractal Lab” and “Moonlight” by Suzuki Tomohiko’s solo project, MIXZAS. They were sold by Vap, a record company. Then he produced a pops band “trump”. It beat 7810 bands and won grand prix of “Clarion Music”, an audition by Clarion and Fuji TV. In addition, he produced and directed various master discs and music data. One of his latest works is music for the movie “Journey To Mt. Fuji” directed by Cris Ubermann. His original score in "Journey to Mt.Fuji" won the Silver Medal at "Global Music Awards" and the Gold Award at "International Independent Film Awards" in 2014. Both film competitions were held in the U.S.A.
Music Education
He was an instructor at Musashino Music School from 1982 to 1987. He joined setting up a music school named “Pan School of Music” in 1986 and became an instructor of composition and arrangement. The president of the school was Mr. Mickey Yoshino, a former member of Godaigo. He was in charge of a head instructor from 1992 to 2010. The school was closed in March, 2010. He also accepted to be a part-time instructor at Osaka University of Arts in 2001. Now he is a visiting professor. He created web materials and teaches popular music on the Internet.Publications
“Arenji Nyumon Koza, or Introductory Course of Arrangement”, ATN (1985)“Randamu Ongakutecho, or Random Music Notebook”, ATN (1990)
“How to Create Music, Popular Music Part” Osaka University of Arts (2001-2004)
“Nodame Kantaabire de Manabu Gakuten Ressun, or How to Learn MusicalGrammar
through Nodame Cantabile” Shinko Music Entertainment (2010)
He regularly writes articles for monthly magazine, “Jazz Life” and supervises many textbooks.