Koide Ichijūrō

Koide Ichijūrō (湖出市十郎, died 29 October 1800) was a Japanese kabuki composer-performer (唄方 uta-kata) of "long songs" (長唄 naga uta) of the Edo period.

From 1747 he appeared at the Morita-za, one of the three venues of Edo.

In 1768 he took the name Koide, and in opposition to Fujita Yoshiji's monopoly on the Ichimura-za, became active at the Nakamura-za, together with Nakamura Fujiro 1st (1719–86), receiving recognition also in Osaka.

[2] During the Meiwa-Tenmei period (1764–89) when the meriyasu genre of solo songs[3] was in vogue he received recognition for shirotae (白妙, "white cloth cherry")[4] and the kouta song kurokami ("black hair").

[5][6][7] The name Ichijūrō was taken up by 2nd, 3rd, (and according to one tradition a 4th) generation of performers of his songs.