Ryuichi Sakamoto, OscarWinning Composer, Dies At 71
Ryuichi Sakamoto, one of Japan's leading composers, author of the music for the films The Last Emperor, Sheltering Sky and The Revenant, and founder of the influential techno-pop group Yellow Magic Orchestra, died on Tuesday. He was 71 years old.
The date of his death was given on his Instagram page, but there were no details. Sakamoto said he was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2021 and was undergoing treatment.
Equally at home in futuristic techno, orchestral pieces, video game songs, and intimate piano solos, Mr. Sakamoto created memorable and soulful music that harmonized with the sounds around him. In addition to releasing numerous solo albums, he has collaborated with various musicians and won an Oscar, a BAFTA, a Grammy, and two Golden Globes.
His Yellow Magic Orchestra, which topped the charts in the late 1970s and early 1980s, produced catchy hits like "Computer Game" on synths and sequences, mocking Western ideas of Japanese music.
“Her main theme is curiosity,” her longtime collaborator, musician Kirsten Nicolai, said in one. Phone interview in 2021. "Reiichi realized early on that the future of music was not in a particular genre, that the future would be in the dialogue between different and unusual styles."
Mr. Sakamoto began to receive mainstream recognition in the early 1980s when director Nagisa Oshima asked him to star opposite David Bowie in Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, a 1983 film about a Japanese prisoner of war camp. . Mr. Sakamoto, who had no acting experience, agreed on the condition that he could also direct the film.
Film Name Mr. Sakamoto arranged it many times, including a vocal version of "Forbidden Color" with singer David Sylvian, as well as extensive piano accompaniment and orchestral arrangements.
This was followed by soundtracks for films directed by Bernardo Bartolucci, such as The Last Emperor (1987), Sheltering Sky (1990) and Little Buddha (1993). Mr. Bertolucci was strict: he shouted: "More exciting, more Kirgargarry!" composer. forced him to rewrite music on the fly while recording with a 40-piece orchestra, but The Last Emperor earned Mr. Sakamoto an Oscar in 1988.
Mr. Sakamoto returned to his classical roots in the late 1990s with "BTTB" or "Back to the Basics", a reminiscent of Claude Debussy, a sensitive and subtle piano arrangement with many piano sessions. experimental. even in the spirit of John Cage. .
This release featured "Energy Flow", originally written to promote a vitamin drink and released as a single to ask how viewers discovered music. In Japan's lost decade, a period of economic stagnation that followed years of technology-driven growth, a quiet piano song sounds soothing.
"Maybe it's because people are looking for a cure for the stress caused by the recession in their country," Mr. K. Sakamoto speculated when "Energy Flow" became his second number-one song on the Japanese Oricon chart in 1999. . .
After the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2011, Sakamoto became an activist in the Japanese anti-nuclear movement and organized the No Nukes concert in 2012 with the Yellow Magic Orchestra and Kraftwerk, one of the Yellow Magic headliners. . Effect done.
The day before the concert, he spoke at a protest near the residence of the Prime Minister of Japan. He said: I came here as a citizen. "It's important that we all do our best and raise our voices."
In 2014, Mr. Sakamoto was diagnosed with throat cancer. During the treatment he stopped working, but he made an exception when the director Alejandro G. Iñárritu asked him to compose the score for The Revenant. Along with Mr. Nikolay, who played Alva Noto, Mr. Sakamoto has created excellent horror music that has been widely praised.
He created a new project in honor of Andrey Tarkovsky, who had a strong influence on him, which was 2017's Async, his first solo album in eight years and a brief account of his career, backed by catchy choruses, ethereal synth soundscapes and recordings. . Paul Bowles reads a passage on the mortality of Sheltering Sky.
In the following years, the city of Sakamoto became more and more spacious and atmospheric, moving with the times. In an interview with the Creative Independent, he explained why he plays his early music much more slowly than before. “I wanted to hear the echo,” he said. “I want to have less notes and more space. Space, not silence. The space resonated, still resonates. I want to savor that echo, hear it grow."
Ryuichi Sakamoto was born on January 17, 1952 in Tokyo. His father, Kazuki Sakamoto, was a renowned literary publisher, and his mother, Keiko (Shimomura) Sakamoto, was a hat designer.
He began taking piano lessons at the age of 6 and soon began composing music. Among his early influences were Bach and Debussy, whom he once described as "the gateway to all the music of the 20th century", and as a teenager he discovered modern jazz by joining the rebellious hipster scene. (During student protests, he and his classmates closed the institute for several weeks.)
Mr. Sakamoto was drawn to contemporary art, and especially to Cage's avant-garde work. He studied composition and ethnomusicology at Tokyo University of the Arts and began playing synthesizers and performing in the local pop scene.
In 1978, Sakamoto released his first solo album, Thousand Knives, a trio that begins with the recitation of a Mao poem over a vocoder, followed by a reggae groove and a series of Herbie Hancock-inspired improvisations. That same year, bassist Haruomi Hosono invited him and drummer Yukihiro Takahashi to form the trio that would become the Yellow Magic Orchestra. (Mr. Takahashi died in January.)
The band's 1978 self-titled album was a huge success, influencing many genres of electronic music, from synth-pop to techno. The group disbanded in 1984 when Mr. Sakamoto wanted to pursue a solo career. (They have been meeting regularly since the 1990s.) Mr. Sakamoto continued to mix with his 1980s high-tech vision, which included another global electro single "Riot in Lagos" on his 1980 album "B-2 Unit."
After the Bertolucci film, Sakamoto seemed to be everywhere: starring in Madonna's music video, modeling for Gap, and writing music for the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. Contributors to the eclectic albums Neo Geo (1987) and "Beauty" (1989) included Iggy Pop., Ussou N'Dor and Brian Wilson, as well as touring five continents with a global fusion band.
In the mid-1990s, Sakamoto rediscovered himself as a classical composer performing the music of his first piano trio. His work is broad and thematic: he wrote the symphony "Conflict" about mourning and redemption (with voices by David Byrne and Patti Smith) and the opera "Life", a reflection on history. 20th century . It received mixed reviews.
In addition to composing music for video games and creating ringtones for the Nokia 8800, Mr. Sakamoto continued to broadcast his concerts live, including a "remote clap" feature where online viewers could press the F key on their keyboard. The blows will be recorded on a screen in the auditorium.
century
“It taught me not to be afraid of my tone,” Mr. Wilson said. Nikolay, in this shade there is also the power to experiment.
Sakamoto, a self-described environmentalist, recorded the sounds of a melting glacier for his 2009 album Out of Noise. For parts of "Async", he played an out-of-tune piano that was partially inundated by the 2011 Tōhoku tsunami.
He recorded his last album "12" as a sketch revue in 2021 and 2022 after being hospitalized. "I just wanted to immerse myself in the sound," he said of the record. "I felt that it would have a small healing effect on the damaged body and soul."
In December, he gave a live piano recital at Studio 509 in Tokyo.
Mr. Sakamoto married Natsuko Sakamoto in 1972 and divorced 10 years later. His second marriage was to musician Akiko Yano in 1982 and they divorced in 2006. His partner was Norika Sora, who was his manager. Its survivors were not immediately available.
Mr. Sakamoto's attention to words permeated his daily life. After several years of eating at Kajitsu restaurant in Manhattan, he recalled in a 2018 interview with The New York Times writing the chef an email saying, "I love your food, I respect you and I love this restaurant, but I hate music". Then, with no fuss or expense, make exquisite and elegant restaurant playlists.
He just wanted his food to be better.
