KEN's HISTORY

The Making of a Musician

At the age of three, Ken Muramatsu was asked to choose between judo and piano. Without hesitation, he chose the piano, which soon became his favorite toy. Growing up with music-loving parents, he absorbed a rich variety of sounds from around the world: Asian folk music and the traditional island songs of Japan, Western classical music, jazz, and Brazilian music. He wrote his first composition in third grade, setting a child’s poem to music in a piece called “Tetsubō” (“Horizontal Bar”).

He began working as a studio musician in his teens. Every time he was asked to play “in the style of” someone else, he felt more strongly that he wanted people to seek out his own sound. While studying at Seijo University, he made his solo debut with Sony in 1983. Since then he has released 51 albums of music that he both composes and performs. His tender, wistful melodies, inspired by the changing seasons, have won devoted listeners.

JAPANESE PIANO

There is no shortage of beautiful piano music in the world. But Muramatsu began writing his own because, as he puts it, “I couldn’t find any piano music that felt right against a landscape of rice fields.” His work eventually came to be known as “JAPANESE PIANO” — piano music that seems to speak Japanese. His melodies touch something deep in the listener, evoking an inexplicable nostalgia even on first hearing. They have been featured in commercials and as themes for television and radio programs.

His music has appeared in television commercials for Sony, Mizuno, JR East, Mizkan, Sumitomo Forestry, Fujitsu, Aflac, and many others. Amid the constant flood of sound in modern life, his music offers a moment of stillness in which we suddenly find ourselves again. Perhaps that is precisely what makes his musical presence so distinctive.

Since the 2000s, he has composed music for animated productions including Sketchbook ~full color’s~, Kure-nai, Umi Monogatari: Anata ga Ite Kureta Koto, and Boku wa Ōsama, as well as the NHK E-TV series Mota-san no “Kotoba”. These new creative canvases have allowed his deeply emotional, lyrical sound to expand in fresh directions. His most recent anime score is for Watari-kun’s ****** Is About to Collapse, which began airing in July 2025 across two cours.

Resort Music — A Place to Return To

He came to seek, through music, a space where he could return to his unguarded self, free of any label or affiliation. That search led him toward what he calls “resort music” — music that gives the heart somewhere to belong, heard in albums such as Midori no Omoi and SWIMMIN’.

Over time, he began to feel a disconnect in the urban recording environment: the instant he stepped outside the studio, the music he had been exploring inside was swallowed by an entirely different world of noise and crowds. Seeking a setting more in harmony with his music, he made extended recording stays in the forests of Hokkaido and Niigata, and even in Ireland.

The Path to Amami

In 1991, drawn by island songs, butterflies, and the spiritual world, he traveled to Amami for the first time. He began spending a month there each year during Mihachigatsu, the eighth month of the traditional lunar calendar. He learned songs from island elders, wandered through forests in search of habura (butterflies), and lived by the sea, rising and resting with the sun. Following what his spirit was seeking, he finally moved his music-production base to Amami in 2004. Everyone around him was surprised, but for an artist who had long searched for a “resort for the heart” through music, it was a natural step.

That same year he founded the KEENMOON label to share music born from the rhythms and fleeting moments of everyday island life. Over the following twenty years, his role grew far beyond composing and performing. Today he personally handles every stage of production, from recording, mixing, and mastering to package design.

Crafting the Amami Shamisen

Beginning with his 2005 album 88+3, Muramatsu brought the Amami shamisen — traditionally an accompanying instrument on the island — into the spotlight as a solo voice. He drew on its bright, high-pitched timbre and the expressive melodic inflections of island singing. His inventive playing, including collaborations with piano, ukulele, and string quartet and percussive, cutting-style techniques, earned enthusiastic responses.

In search of an instrument that could give him even greater freedom of expression, he eventually began carving and making shamisen himself. After ten years he completed an instrument with the sound he had envisioned, and in 2016 released two entirely solo shamisen albums simultaneously: Gessei Kashin ~ANIMISM~ and Shimagoyomi Sangen Gurashi. His explorations continue: carving a new shamisen each January seems to have become a New Year tradition.

Live Performance

Muramatsu performs not only in concert halls and live music venues, but in places that inspire one-of-a-kind musical experiences: moonlit and dawn beaches, forests, ancient temple grounds, abandoned schools, churches, art museums, burial mounds, and fields of flowers. Each setting becomes part of the music he shares with his audience.

He chooses the program on the day of each concert because he wants each performance to be an unrepeatable encounter, possible only in that particular place and moment. In recent years, supporters captivated by his music have helped bring his concerts to communities across Japan.

On Amami, his activities include the outdoor concert Utunu Ushagimun (“an offering of sound” in the island language), the December street performance Shima nu Christmas, and volunteer school concerts that bring live music to children who rarely have a chance to experience it.

Brushes of Another Color

Beyond composing and performing, he has appeared as both music director and traveler on programs such as TV Saitama’s Nakasendō: Kaze no Tabi and Gunma TV’s Mikuni Kaidō: Kaze no Michishirube. He has published three essay collections and contributed serial essays to the Hokkaido Shimbun, Nankai Nichinichi Shimbun, and Monthly Piano. He now regularly shares photographs and essays on note. He also hosts the radio programs Yūsudami ni SLOW on Amami FM Di! Wave and Myūgure on K-mix in Shizuoka.

Treasures of the Island

Since 2018, he has helped introduce Amami’s natural environment and culture to audiences both on and beyond the island, producing music for the Amami Ōshima Utajima Project. He has also contributed music and narration to the Amami Museum’s Amami Digital Museum at Home initiative, which explores new possibilities for museums in a changing era.

With Kazufumi Shingen, he formed the musical unit A-pulse to bring back the playful spirit at the heart of traditional island song, releasing its first album, Ogya, in April 2022. On the island, something precious remains: the ability to find joy through a close relationship with nature, to connect without money changing hands, and to share what one has with others. Muramatsu hopes to help preserve and renew these invisible “treasures” for the generations to come.

A New Chapter on YouTube

In May 2023, he launched his YouTube channel, Ken Muramatsu no Healthy!, and began broadcasting live talk-and-music sessions. A week later, he premieres a carefully refined archive of each stream, polishing the audio and video until he is satisfied. Even after publication, he makes further updates whenever he finds something to improve — which resets the video’s view count each time. His devotion to the quality of each work over its number of views could hardly be more characteristic of him. His beloved cat, who appears in every episode, has quietly become a fan favorite.

40th Anniversary

November 21, 2023 marked exactly forty years since his debut. Looking at that milestone as a fresh beginning, he declared his intention to try things he had never done, or had never been able to do, before. He launched a crowdfunding project to create a commemorative album. The first release was Hanauta to Ashibyōshi, his first all-covers album, released on March 10, 2025. The second project is devoted entirely to new original compositions.

Reboot 4.26

In late summer 2025, an unexpected problem with his right hand forced him to suspend his musical activities.

But the time away from the stage was far from empty. While recovering, he immersed himself in listening to music and continued mental practice, imagining the day he could return to the piano and play with even greater freedom than before. New musical ideas quietly gathered along the way.

The stage chosen for his return was Utunu Ushagimun, the sacred-site concert on Amami that had regrettably been canceled in September 2025. It was rescheduled for the same location on April 26, 2026. Ninety days before the performance, he launched the project Reboot 4.26: adding notes to a score little by little, day by day, until they became a complete piece to be performed at the concert. Time that had stood still was beginning to move again.