Biography

KOTARO SAITO
(Cellist, Composer, Arranger, and Programmer. )

Born: December 2 1975

Recorded and performed with Ringo Shina, Angela Aki, Jazztronic, Crazy Ken Band, YUZU, Kumi Koda, Crystal Kay and so on.
Appeared in lots of PV and TV programs.

He is the only cellist in JAPAN who plays 5 and 6 strings cello, along with the regular 4 strings.

Now UNCLE BOY is his main band. The band is the instrumental trio formed by the bassist with his 7 strings bass, Kotaro with his 5 strings cello and drummer.
He's good at playing ROCK style using lots of improvisation. He likes to use pedals such as Fuzz, Delay, Rat boosters and so on.

He adores Frank Zappa and loves dogs.

He worked as a trainer for the Japanese actor called Masahiro Motoki, when he had to play cello in the film called 'OKURIBITO'.

The film is known as "Departures" in the outside of Japan and won the Best Foreign Language Film prize at the 81st Academy Awards. The film is depicting a cellist who becomes a funeral professional.

The 1st major CD debut of Kotaro was back in 2005 as a member of the duo called "Tongari-kids". Their 1st single "B-Dush" sold more than 400,000 copies and it raised to No. 2 of "the Oricon daily ranking chart", and in weekly chart, the highest position was No. 4. Tongari-kids appeared several major TV program such as "Music Station" and played on stage of "Summer Sonic Festival". The single got the gold disc.

In 2009, he released another CD as a member of the band called B-CLUB from P-VINE. Kotaro worked not just as a main composer/programmer and a cellist, he even sung in that band.

In 2010, released CD from Midi Creative as a member of UNCLE BOY. The bassist is USHIRO-KARA-MAEKAWA.

In 2011, took part in Kabuki play called "May sanndai taisetsu", as a improvising cellist. The play was broadcasted on TV by the station called WOWWOW.