Kumiko(クミコ)

Kumiko(クミコ) graduated from Waseda University (早稲田大学 Waseda Daigaku) with a degree in education. She attended Waseda wanting to become an act on stage. While performing a play in the style of the theater of the absurd, she was required to sing and she loved it so much that she decided to go into music instead. Before graduation, a friend invited her to join a band as a pianist. The friend later left the band, and she filled in for the friend's vocal section.

In 1978, she entered the Yamaha Popular Song Contest and won through the preliminary rounds even though she had forgotten the lyrics at one point. She then entered the World Popular Song Festival, an international competition also organized by Yamaha Music Foundation, as one of the representatives for Japan, but didn't get past the preliminary rounds.

She spent the next few years living in a small place supported by a small number of enthusiastic fans.

In the early eighties, she performed mostly as a chanson singer, made her professional debut on stage, recorded the Japanese version of Les Miserable as a part of an ensemble, and performed at Shibuya Jean-Jean (渋谷ジァン・ジァン Shibuya jan-jan).

Taking lyricist Matsumoto Takashi(松本隆)'s suggestion, she dropped her former husband's last name and started releasing her works using just her first name, Kumiko. Her name became a household name as a result of her "AURA" album released in 2000 and her single "My Pretty Love Story(わが麗しき恋物語 Waga Uruwashiki Koimonogatari)" released in 2003.

Her 2010 single "Prayer(INORI〜祈り〜)" reached the top of the Usen chart.

In 2011, she was rehearsing in the underground floor of the people's hall at Ishinomaki City in Miyagi Prefecture when the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami approached. She survived by rushing out into the nearby mountains, but lost all equipment, and she went back to Tokyo without anything she had brought along.

This blog post translates information from the Wikipedia article クミコ which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.