Biography
Joe Hisaishi is a Japanese composer, pianist and conductor, known for his music for Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli films, including Spirited Away and My Neighbour Totoro.
Hisaishi was born Mamoru Fujisawa in Nagano, Japan. He began learning the violin at the age of four, enrolled in the Suzuki Method.
He studied at Kunitachi College of Music in 1969, specialising in composition, and as he began working as a composer and performer, he developed his Joe Hisaishi alias.
He wrote his first score for animator and filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki in 1984, at the recommendation of a music publisher he’d worked with. His first for Miyazaki was Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, followed up by Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986).
When Miyazaki founded Studio Ghibli in 1986, Hisaishi continued to be the director’s go-to composer, and Hisaishi wrote the scores for Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, and many others that have come out of the studio.
Hisaishi continued writing scores for Miyazaki and his studio Ghibli until present day, most recently The Boy and the Heron (2023), in a partnership many have compared to that of Hollywood director Steven Spielburg and composer John Williams.
Some of Hisaishi’s Ghibli scores have been heard by millions of people due to their popularity. ‘One Summer’s Day’, the opening theme from Spirited Away, and ‘Merry-Go-Round’ from Howl’s Moving Castle are some of his most popular pieces.
Hisaishi has also scored live action films, including the Oscar-winning film Departures, and documentaries, including David Attenborough’s 2015 film, Legends of the Deep: Deep Sea Sharks.
Hisaishi once said “I don’t think that because I’m a composer, I only have to compose music.” He is also a recording artist and performer. He founded his own record label, Wonder Land Inc., in 1989, and released his debut synth-pop album, Pretender, that year. He went on to record 27 studio albums.
In 1998, Hisaishi was invited to write the music for the 1998 Winter Paralympics in Japan.
He’s also a conductor, and has conducted the New Japan World Dream Orchestra and his own orchestra, Future Orchestra Classics and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, among others.
As a pianist, he’s released several solo, chamber and orchestral recordings, including his Piano Stories series.
Hisaishi has won several awards, including the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award Music Prize for Howl's Moving Castle (2005), and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Score for The Boy and the Heron (2023).
Did you know… Hisaishi is also a film director and directed his first film, Quartet, in 2001.
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