Musicians - Ritsuki Nakano

Home > Listing Index > Musicians > Ritsuki Nakano

	Musicians - Ritsuki Nakano

Ritsuki Nakano (中野律紀) (born January 19, 1975), professionally known as Rikki, is a famous Japanese folk singer. She was born in Amami Oshima, Japan.

She began to sing traditional Japanese folk music when she was four years old. Later, at the age of 15, Rikki was the youngest winner ever to win the "Grand Prix" of the Japanese traditional folk music awards (known as All Japan Minyo awards). She first performed in Tokyo, Japan, at the prestigious Festival Konda Lota in 1992. She released her first single "Maten no Hoshi" (which means "Sky Full of Stars") in December 1993, originally released in the Kyushu region of Japan. Shortly thereafter, she produced debut album, Kaze no Koe.

Rikki is widely known by gamers as the singer of the Final Fantasy X main theme, Suteki Da Ne , released as a single on July 18 2001. Other songs on the single include the Instrumental version of Suteki Da Ne, a vocal remix of Aerith Theme from Final Fantasy VII, and a new song entitled "Utikisama" (which means "The Moon"). One reason why Nobuo Uematsu and Kazushige Nojima chose her to perform Suteki Da Ne (translated into English as "Isn't It Wonderful?") is that she is very famous in Japan as a traditional folk singer and he believed that her voice is rather nice and gentle, and that her voice has a higher pitch than the voices of mainstream Japanese singers. Rikki was 26 years old at the time of Final Fantasy X's release. Many professional and amateur singers were inspired by her singing voice and ability to make combinations and mixtures of pop and rock music.

In 1998, Rikki was chosen to participate at the opening ceremony of the 1998 Winter Paralympics in Nagano, Japan, sing the Paralympics theme song "Tabidachi no Toki."

In 2001, she produced a picture album alongside Joe Hisaishi for the motion picture Spirited Away (directed by Hayao Miyazaki).

Discography

Singles

'Manten no Sora' (1 December 1993)
'Tsubasa wo Hiroge' (1 May 1994)
'Suteki da ne featured in FINAL FANTASY X' (18 July 2002) - Re-released by Square Enix on July 22 2004. It is a song from Final Fantasy X
'Karatachi Nomichi / Toki' (19 March 2003)

Albums

Mucha Kana (21 May 1993) - Re-released on August 21 2002
Kaze no Koe (16 December 1993)
Taiyo no Shita de (24 August 1994)
Rikki (2 December 1995)
Kanaria (3 October 2001)
Mitsu (21 August 2002)
Shimauta TRICKLES (25 September 2002)

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Ritsuki Nakano ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Ritsuki Nakano; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay