Origa

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Origa, born Olga Vitalyevna Yakovleva, was a Russian singer who became known mainly through her collaborations in Japan. She was born on 12 October 1970 in the village of Kochenyovo, fifty kilometres west of Novosibirsk, and died on 17 January 2015. After finishing music school in 1990 she got the chance to visit Japan, and in 1991 she went there. In 1993 she signed with the organisation ROAD&SKY. She worked on various projects with a wide range of artists, sang along in the series of Radio Japan and in the choir of the charity single for the Kobe earthquake. She released eight solo albums, three mini-albums, two compilations and three singles, including ORIGA in 1994, illusia in 1995, Era of Queens in 2003, AURORA in 2005, Amon Ra in 2013 and Lost and Found in 2015.

Music and breakthrough

Outside Japan she became known through Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and the accompanying soundtrack albums. The music was written by her old friend, the composer Yoko Kanno. Both the title song of the first season, Inner Universe, with boy soprano Ben Del Maestro, and that of the second season, Rise, used her voice. Earlier she had sung the song Moon for ∀ Gundam in concerts with Kanno. In 2005 she sang songs for the anime series Fantastic Children, the best known being the closing theme Mizu no Madoromi, and in 2006 she co-wrote and sang Player and date of rebirth for the film Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Solid State Society.

Influence

Origa shows how anime music gained a worldwide audience of its own. Her voice, between classical singing and electronics, became a characteristic sound of Yoko Kanno's work.

Listening

• 
  Inner Universe · Origa, 2002

Discography

Studio albums

• 1994ORIGA
• 1995illusia
• 1996リラからの風
• 1998永遠。
• 2003Era of Queens
• 2005AURORA
• 2008THE SONGWREATH
• 2013Amon Ra
• 2015Lost and Found