Joe Hisaishi

Joe Hisaishi, born Mamoru Fujisawa on 6 December 1950, is a Japanese composer, conductor, and pianist whose music has become inseparable from many films by Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. He was born in Nakano, Nagano Prefecture, and studied composition at Kunitachi College of Music, graduating in 1974. Before his international recognition as a screen composer, he worked in Japan’s contemporary music scene and released electronic and minimalist-influenced recordings. His 1981 album MKWAJU combined synthesizers with acoustic instruments, while Information, issued in 1982, showed his interest in repetitive patterns and studio textures.

In 1984, Hisaishi began his long collaboration with Miyazaki by composing for Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. The partnership continued through Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Porco Rosso, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Ponyo, The Wind Rises, and The Boy and the Heron. His scores do not merely accompany animation: Totoro’s main theme and the catbus music give the 1988 film a playful identity, whereas Princess Mononoke uses large-scale orchestral writing and vocal material for its conflict between industry and the forest.

Hisaishi also composed extensively outside Miyazaki’s films. His score for Takeshi Kitano’s 1991 film A Scene at the Sea initiated another major director-composer collaboration. He subsequently wrote music for Kitano’s Sonatine, Kids Return, Hana-bi, Kikujiro, Brother, Dolls, and Achilles and the Tortoise. The lyrical piano melody “Summer,” written for Kikujiro, became one of his best-known concert and recording pieces. His Kitano work can be markedly sparer than his Ghibli scores, often allowing piano, strings, and silence to carry emotional weight.

In 2008, he composed the score for Yōjirō Takita’s Departures, a film about a cellist who becomes a funeral ritual professional; it won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He also wrote the music for Isao Takahata’s The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, adapting the Japanese folktale The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter.

As a conductor, Hisaishi has brought his film music to concert halls through orchestral programs and recordings, often revisiting themes in new arrangements. His work has moved between electronic composition, intimate piano writing, pop-oriented song settings, and symphonic forces. That range is audible in the contrast between the childlike simplicity of My Neighbor Totoro and the monumental choral and orchestral sound of Princess Mononoke. Across film, recordings, and live performance, he has made melody and orchestration central to a body of work recognized far beyond Japan.