Mareo Ishiketa was born in Wakayama in 1916. After graduating from Wakayama Teacher’s College, he studied composing with Kanichi Shimousa at Tokyo Music School (currently named Tokyo University of the Arts). After graduation, he diligently studied composing while teaching music at Fukui Teacher’s College.

In 1943, Ishiketa’s “Small Symphony” was awarded at a music competition. Starting in 1946, he regularly joined the composer group “Shinseikai” and composed several pieces. In his early days, he published many pieces of academic chamber music that had German classical style, but then released pioneering new styles of music for Japanese instruments such as “Three Chapters’ Concerto for Koto” (1951) and “Suite for Koto” (1952). He also wrote some pieces using the avant-garde technique of twelve-tone music, such as the song “Karasu (Crow)” (1956), the opera “Sotobakomachi” (1957) and others. In Piano songs, there are works using classical format such as “Piano Sonata” (1947) and “Suite for Children”.

Starting in 1946, Ishiketa was devoted to the training of younger generations at his old school, Tokyo University of the Arts, and played a leading role in the Japanese music education world. He wrote books such as “Musical Theory”, “Musical Grammar - Theory and Practice” (co-author), “Comprehensive Practice for Listening and Sighting” (co-author) and others. He won the second Orders of the Sacred Treasure. He died at the age of 79 in 1996.