Naruyoshi Kikuchi

Naruyoshi Kikuchi (菊地 成孔) is a Japanese, songwriter, band leader, university lecturer, and music producer known for his work on various films and television shows. He performs music on and  as well as singing and rapping. He has composed the soundtracks for 's television adaptation of Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan and the 2023 film Rohan au Louvre along with his students as part of the SHIN-ON-GAK (新音楽制作工房) production studio.

In addition to being a solo jazz musician and band leader, Kikuchi has also composed the soundtracks of ' and ', among others. He has also worked as a journalist, writer, commentator, and club DJ.

Biography
Kikuchi was born on June 14, 1963. He had a very difficult birth and was feared to be stillborn as he was silent and breathless, but after a few minutes, he let out an explosive cry. The author is his older brother.

His family runs a diner in, Chiba Prefecture, and he grew up in the entertainment district of the port town. From a young age, he was familiar with mood songs and books left behind by his older brother who moved to Tokyo. He attended Choshi Municipal Choshi High School and then graduated from the Saxophone Department of Music School MESAR HAUS. In his student days, he played the trumpet and bassoon in a civic orchestra. After a year, he enrolled in a certain university's literature department but soon dropped out. He attended the jazz club at Sophia University for about 10 years.

According to his official website, he does not believe in any specific religion, but his favorite religions are Shinto, Buddhism, Christianity (Catholicism), Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism.

Kikuchi was primarily an unknown jazz musician in the 1980s and 1990s. However, after joining Otomo Yoshihide's New Jazz Quintet in 1999, he gradually became known in the music industry. His fame further increased due to his book "Albert Ayler at the University of Tokyo" (2006) and TBS Radio's "Naruyoshi Kikuchi's Cool Night Radio Season" (2011).

As a studio musician, he has had jam sessions with many musicians. He admires and, and he calls himself a "graduate from the Miles Course in the Godard Department."

He runs a private school called "Penguin Music Graduate School" and is also the sole head instructor of the musical aesthetics course at the Athénée Français Film School. He has also served as a part-time lecturer at University of Tokyo's Arts and Sciences Department (2004-2005), Kunitachi College of Music (2006-), Tokyo University of the Arts (2007-), and Keio University (2008-). He is a visiting member of the Keio University Art Center.

He has written numerous books as a writer and has contributed and serialized many articles in magazines. For about 10 years from 2004 to 2013, he set up his workplace in a top-floor apartment in, and he is sometimes introduced in the media as a "resident of Kabukicho."