Shin Kono
Shin Kono is a Japanese composer, arranger, and keyboardist from Tokyo.
Biography
Born in Tokyo in 1964, Shin Kono began studying piano at the age of five, attending Yamaha Music School alongside a friend and his older sister. Despite friends dropping out, Kono continued lessons, partly due to his sister’s persistence, until his third year of junior high. During this time, he studied classical pieces by composers like Friedrich Burgmüller and Carl Czerny but grew increasingly drawn to pop music. As a child, he enjoyed kayōkyoku artists like Kenji Sawada and Candies, later discovering Western artists like The Carpenters through an LP gifted by an uncle. His passion for music deepened in junior high when his sister introduced him to a Beatles live album, which profoundly influenced him. Though he wanted to quit classical piano to focus on pop, he found it difficult to voice this desire and continued lessons, often erasing his teacher’s red pencil marks to avoid assigned pieces. Kono’s love for pop music led him to transcribe songs by ear from the radio, a practice that honed his musical intuition.During his high school years, Kono pursued music actively through band activities. While attending university, he performed as a keyboardist for productions by the Shiki Theatre Company. After graduating, Kono embarked on a professional music career, initially gaining prominence as a session musician and arranger.
In the 1990s, Kono became a long-time collaborator with singer-songwriter Chisato Moritaka, composing several songs for her and serving as a support band member for her concerts. During this decade, Kono also worked with diverse acts, including Hello Project’s Morning Musume, Pizzicato Five, and Cosa Nostra. A significant project was his involvement with the pop band from 1992 to 1997 alongside Naruyoshi Kikuchi and Midori Hara, where he contributed to songwriting, arranging, producing, keyboard performance, and backing vocals.
Kono’s career in TV soundtracks began in 2000 with the drama Food Fight, broadcast by NTV. Collaborating with Tetsutaro Sakurai, Kono crafted character-driven music that showcased his ability to adapt to various contexts, a skill honed during his 1990s session work. This marked the start of a prolific period in the 2000s, during which Kono composed for numerous dramas, films, and stage productions. His versatile and emotionally resonant compositions, contributing to numerous hit dramas such as Ossan's Love, An Incurable Case of Love, and Dairenai: Boku o Wasureru Kimi to, earned him a name as a prolific composer of background music, known in Japanese as gekiban. In 2006, Kono received the Music Award at the 49th edition of Japanese Television Drama Academy Awards for his work on Iryū: Team Medical Dragon, alongside fellow composer Hiroyuki Sawano.
In addition to his work for TV dramas, Kono composed and arranged all music for the Shiki Theatre Company’s production Robot in the Garden, which premiered in 2020.
His arranging, producing, composing, and works as supporting band member have also extended to prominent artists including Crystal Kay, Mika Nakashima, Rip Slyme, Maaya Sakamoto, Nao Matsushita, and Mone Kamishiraishi, among others.