We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Marika Takeuchi. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Marika below.
Alright, Marika thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
I have always loved music growing up. I played piano since the age of three, violin, and French horn for several years, loved singing, dancing, and simply listening to music. I started making up songs when I was around 8 or 9. I always wanted to be a musician. But it was when I suffered from depression in my teen I deceived to actually pursue music as a career. I didn’t have lots of friends, so I often spent time alone watching movies and playing film music on the piano. I decided to go to a music college to study composition and music production, and when I first made a proper composition and played it through a big pair of speakers at the school, I really felt like something that had been missing for a long time was finally fulfilled. On the train back from school that day, I cried like a baby the whole way and I decided to shift my energy to composing instead of being depressed. And that made me decide to become a professional composer.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I’m a composer and pianist originally from Japan. I compose music both as an artist and for media I have released many albums of my modern classical/ambient music, and scored short films, video games, commercials, and music libraries worldwide. I had small gigs early on, but my career took off when I wrote piano piece for a Timelapse video which was popular back in 2011. The video become viral online and I had lot of people asking me if I have albums for them to purchase. I didn’t have any album at the time as I was studying to be only a media composer. So I recorded my first EP with my friends and released it, which was the beginning of my career. Eventually the piano piece got licensed to a TV commercial in Australia and other web commercials, and I became known as a piano composer. Since then I’m doing works both as an artist and media composer, which overlaps a lot as my clients often approach to me because they like my music that I have released as an artist
My latest album is called Dreamer in the Dark, which I wrote while I was pregnant with my baby daughter. It’s a collection of lullaby that I use to put her to sleep. As a media composer, I scored a PlayStation game called Aurora’s Journey and the Pitiful Lackey, which was released earlier this year. It was my first time scoring a whole game, and it was a lot of fun.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
If you follow your dreams, you also have to be ready for a lot of rejections. I had been rejected countless times. And before all the feminist and diversity movements that arose recently, there were people who have told me that I couldn’t be successful as a composer because I’m female and asian. But there were also lot of people who believed in me and worked with me. As long as we create something, your creations are always judged. It’s important to listen to advice, but don’t take every criticism and rejection personally. Because art is subjective, and trends come and go. We have to believe in our art, and stick with it.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
It’s not always easy to keep being creative. Especially after I had my baby daughter last summer, I have found it challenging to find the time and inspiration to sit and write new music as an artist. But what drives me forward is messages from my fans saying that my music helped them get through hard times. Because a long time ago, I was saved by music. So I always want to help others through music.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.marika-takeuchi.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marika_takeuchi/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/MarikaTakeuchiMusic/
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0lsDi98XEKVkgN2kdZWBHT
- Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/marika-takeuchi/445751310
Image Credits
Jesse Lirora, Alexander Haessner