Early years Kotringo was born in
Osaka. She later moved west to Fukuoka, and then back east to Nagoya after she finished her fifth year of elementary school. Kotringo started playing the piano at age five, and began composing music at age seven. The first song she wrote was named "A Kitten's Nap" (子猫のひるね;
Koneko no Hiru Ne).
Musical education After graduating from high school, Kotringo entered the Koyo Music School in
Kobe. In 1999, she was accepted by the
Berklee College of Music, where she majored in
Jazz Composition and Performance. At Berklee, Kotringo received numerous awards, including the piano department's Achievement Award. During this time, she took part in the recording of the album "Finder's Keepers", with the Contemporary Jazz Big Band led by Michael MacAllister, a classmate, accomplished guitar player, and recipient of numerous awards, including the ASCAP Foundation Young Composer Award. Kotringo performed for three years as an accompanist for the voice department at Berklee and as a pianist for a church in Boston. After receiving her degree in 2003, she moved to New York and spent a year performing at Detour, Garage, Kaveha's and St. Nicks.
Back in Japan In the fall of 2005, Kotringo began to work in finding a way to express her own music with her voice, piano and her MacBook. The following March, a composition she sent to
Ryuichi Sakamoto's "Radio Sakamoto" Audition Corner (broadcast on J-WAVE, a Tokyo-based FM station covering the Kanto Region) caught Sakamoto's attention. Later, a second single she submitted to the program, "Nichiyo Machi" (Waiting for a Sunday) was broadcast on air. These events lead her to participation in the LOHAS Classical Concert in Kyoto produced by Ryuichi Sakamoto in June, 2006.
Recording career In November of the same year, she made her debut with the release of her first single, the Ryuichi Sakamoto-produced
Konnichiwa, Mata Ashita, a tie-in song for the Gekkeikan company's "Tsuki" commercial. Sakamoto was impressed by the multitude of Kotringo's talents: the originality of composition, the superb performance on piano, her pure and virginal singing voice crossed with sounds of electronica, all combined to give the effect of visual imagery coming to life from actual pages of a musical score... just like looking at a picture book. Since 2007 she has released seven original albums (
songs in the birdcage,
nemurugirl,
sweet nest,
trick & tweet,
La memoire de mon bandwagon,
Tsubame Novelette, and
birdcore!), two cover albums (
picnic album 1 & 2), and five soundtracks (''Bear's School - Jackie & Katie
, BECK
, I Have to Buy New Shoes
, Gourmet Girl Graffiti, and In This Corner of the World). The trick & tweet
album from 2009 featured, as a bonus track, Children's World
(こどものせかい; Kodomo no sekai
), the ending theme song to the 2009 animated movie Mai Mai Miracle''. ==About the name==