Composer Joe Hisaishi: ‘I wrote the Totoro theme in 20 minutes!’

31 October 2025, 17:30 | Updated: 4 November 2025, 09:59

Joe Hisaishi: ‘I wrote the Totoro theme in 20 minutes!’ | Classic FM

Hisaishi sat down with Jonathan Ross at Abbey Road Studios to discuss his career in music, from the Ghibli maestro’s ultra-hummable themes for ‘My Neighbour Totoro’ and ‘Spirited Away’, to his symphonic works.

Most Joe Hisaishi fans will discover his music through the beloved Studio Ghibli animations, which he has been scoring for the last 40 years since Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), his first collaboration with director Hayao Miyazaki. He has written the soundtrack to every one of Miyazaki’s films since, including 2023’s Oscar-winning The Boy and the Heron.

Hisaishi is a master in building simple, memorable motifs and orchestrating them into sweeping scores which heighten a film’s emotional identity. Many of his pieces have transcended the stories they were written for and become just as treasured as the films.

Often described as a minimal composer, he manages to evoke huge emotional and psychological responses with his music, through even the simplest of motifs.

“I love minimal music,” Hisaishi tells host of Classic FM at the Movies, Jonathan Ross, who is hosting a special programme celebrating the Japanese composer’s music on Saturday 1 November. “It’s like Baroque music,” he adds, making a comparison to the genres’ use of methodical, repeating patterns.

There is perhaps more to Hisaishi than meets the eye – not least his moniker, a stage name inspired by the American musician Quincy Jones (in kanji, written Japanese, ‘Hisaishi’ reads like ‘Kuishi’, which sounds close to ‘Quincy’, while ‘Joe’ comes from ‘Jones’). Hisaishi was born Mamoru Fujisawa, a name he gave up during his time studying music composition at the Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo, at the encouragement of a friend.

Read more: 10 greatest pieces of music by Joe Hisaishi, ranked

Early in his career, Hisaishi composed minimalist and electronic music, inspired by composers such as Philip Glass and his good friend, Steve Reich.

Today, his music blends romantic orchestral traditions, the repeated patterns of minimalism and Japanese folk influences. He has conducted orchestras worldwide including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, where he is Composer in Association, and the New Japan Philharmonic, which he recently conducted in a concert of his own music, alongside Mahler’s epic Symphony No.1.

“I love Mahler,” Hisaishi says. “I’m a contemporary composer – so this year I conducted [Olivier] Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie in Tokyo, and last year I conducted Steve Reich’s The Desert Music.”

In that same concert, at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall in July 2024, Hisaishi performed his own The End of the World suite. “The End of the World is about 9/11,” the composer explains. “After I went to the World Trade Centre, where there was nothing, I looked to inspire.”

Hisaishi suggests that he enjoys the challenge of writing original classical works, compared to writing film scores.

“Film is just easy for me, because the director tells me, ‘this film, this style, please’. And I say, ‘okay’.”

Hisaishi is being modest of course – directors ask to work with him, because he gives them something more back than they ask for in the first place.

Read more: Steve Reich’s 9/11 memorial composition is almost unbearably haunting

As well as Hayao Miyazaki, he has a fruitful relationship with the filmmaker Takeshi Kitano, famous for his Japanese movies including Brother (2000) and Dolls (2002), which are both scored by Hisaishi, and written with Kitano’s signature minimal dialogue.

“I’m minimalist. So for Takeshi Kitano films, that case is very minimal style and not so emotional style,” Hisaishi explains. But in the case of Miyazaki’s Ghibli animations, he adds, “in that case, [there] is more emotional feeling. [They are] separate for me.”

The Ghibli films and scores have gained a maturity with age. The Boy and the Heron, which won the Oscar for best animated feature film at the 96th Academy Awards, is a deeper psychological and emotional experience than many of the other films – and a masterpiece, Ross tells Hisaishi, both musically and cinematically.

At the time of the interview, Hisaishi was in London recording a new symphonic version of The Boy and the Heron.

Read more: Which film composers have won the most Academy Awards?

“I have worked with Miyazaki-san for about 40 years – from Nausicaä to The Boy and the Heron,” Hisaishi says, adding that they seem to work on a new film together every four years. “So it’s like the Olympic Games!”

Looking back to My Neighbour Totoro, which is currently enjoying an extended run on the West End in a sell-out RSC production, Hisaishi recalls: “Totoro took me about 20 minutes to finish.” Impressive work, for a theme still so well-loved almost 40 years on.

After four decades of music-making, could retirement be on the horizon soon for the 74-year-old composer? Well… “This summer, I said, this Ghibli film concert tour is final – final concert tour. I said…” Hisaishi jokes. “But I will still do more concerts!”

We wouldn’t have it any other way…

Join Jonathan Ross on Saturday 1 November from 7-9pm for a celebration of Joe Hisaishi and the wonderful world of Studio Ghibli, in Classic FM at the Movies.