Biography
Sei Ikeno (24 February 1931 – 13 August 2004) was a Japanese composer. Born in Sapporo, Hokkaido, he studied at the Tokyo Music School (now Tokyo University of the Arts) under Tomojirō Ikenouchi and Akira Ifukube, and won second prize in the orchestra section of the 21st Japan Music Competition in 1952 for his Introduction et allegro symphonique.
He served as an uncredited assistant composer to Ifukube on several Toho kaiju films, including Godzilla (1954), King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) and Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964). Ikeno composed scores for nearly 150 films from the mid-1950s onwards, working with directors including Kōzaburō Yoshimura, Yūzō Kawashima and Yasuzō Masumura, and contributing to the Zatoichi series. He also lectured on composition and orchestration at the Tokyo College of Music and Tokyo University of the Arts.
