Ryuichi Sakamoto

Sakamoto was one of Japan's most successful musicians, acclaimed for work in Yellow Magic Orchestra as well as solo albums and film scores.

[The Last Emperor](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/apr/15/the-last-emperor) (in which he also had an acting role), he collaborated with Bernardo Bertolucci again for The Last Buddha, and with Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence director Nagisa Oshima for Gohatto. In 1999 he debuted the multimedia opera project Life, in collaboration with artist Shiro Takatani with contributions from Bertolucci, Pina Bausch and more. [Japan](https://www.theguardian.com/world/japan) – in 1980, two of their albums stayed at No 1 and No 2 in the charts for seven weeks, and they had seven Top 5 albums during their career. He and Takatani extended the concept into installation work from 2007 onwards. He took no further acting roles, aside from appearing as a film director in Rain, a music video for Madonna. Sakamoto also starred in the film as a prisoner of war camp commander. He acted alongside David Bowie in the 1983 film Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence and composed its [celebrated theme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF9_9MZyQGo), the first in a series of film scores including Oscar-winning work in 1987 with David Byrne and Cong Su for Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor. In 2019, he composed the music for an episode of dystopian TV drama series Black Mirror. He was born in Tokyo in 1952, and began taking piano lessons aged six, later attending Tokyo University of the Arts to study music. He also scored two films by Brian De Palma (Snake Eyes and Femme Fatale), plus Wild Palms for Oliver Stone, High Heels for Pedro Almodóvar, the 1990 film adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale, and more. Michael Jackson covered their song Behind the Mask and intended to include it on Thriller, but a royalties disagreement prevented it. He trained on early synthesisers, and enthused by everything from Debussy to Kraftwerk, began working on various musical projects, including with Hosono and Takahashi.

World-renowned Japanese composer and musician Ryuichi Sakamoto has died at the age of 71 after battling cancer, his management company KAB America Inc.

He worked continuously until his later years, including the score for 2015 film 'The Revenant.' Four years later, he took home a Golden Globe and Oscar for best music for his score for the 'The Last Emperor.' Sakamoto wrote the score and starred alongside David Bowie in the 1983 film 'Merry Christmas, Mr.

The renowned composer and producer has passed away aged 71.

[April 2, 2023] In 2014, Sakamoto was first diagnosed with throat cancer. Additionally, he composed the soundtrack for films such as The Last Emperor and The Revenant as well as 1983’s Merry Christmas, Mr Laurence in which he also starred in alongside David Bowie. We would like to express our deepest gratitude to his fans and all those who have supported his activities, as well as the medical professionals in Japan and the U.S. Born in 1952, Sakamoto took up piano from an early age and over the course of his creative career was a pioneer within electronic and ambient music. The post revealed that he passed away last week on 28 March.

It's been confirmed that pioneering electronic musician, composer and actor Ryuichi Sakamoto died earlier this week, aged 71.

Their 1983 song ‘Forbidden Colours’ appeared on the soundtrack of Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence. His career is so brilliant & varied that it’s an embarrassment of riches. Thank you for the warmth and generosity, and for the wellspring of your music which lives so very deeply inside so many of us. [April 2, 2023] As well as scoring Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, Sakamoto also starred in the war film alongside “In accordance with Sakamoto’s strong wishes, the funeral service was held among his close family members. Among their other collaborations was the 2003 EP ‘World Citizen’. With deep love and respect…RIP. how can one summarise your gentle profundity?

Listen to the ambient playlist which the late legendary composer Ryuichi Sakamoto curated for his favourite Japanese restaurant in New York City.

He worked alongside music producer Ryu Takahashi to create the set of songs, including Aki Takahashi’s take on John Cage’s ‘Four Walls’, which he described as “so pop” and said: “It’s like a radio hit”. In the email, he explained: “I love your food, I respect you and I love this restaurant, but I hate the music. But the music in your restaurant is like Trump Tower.” “I found their BGM so bad, so bad,” he commented of the previous background music which played in Kajitsu. But this restaurant is really something I like, and I respect their chef, Odo.” However, when his favourite restaurant played a brand of music that wasn’t to his taste, Sakamoto intervened by curating a playlist based on their menu.

Ryuichi Sakamoto, keyboardist for the pioneering Yellow Magic Orchestra and Oscar-winning composer of 'The Last Emperor,' has died at the age of 71.

But, I am hoping to make music for a little while longer,” he wrote in 2021. That album spawned the electro single “Riot in Lagos,” which in turn informed the music of Afrika Bambaataa and Mantronix. In 1987, director Bernardo Bertolucci enlisted Sakamoto, along with David Byrne and Chinese composer Cong Su, to create the score for his epic The Last Emperor. “I decided to cancel all the projects. … Of course, treatment was the most important thing and I had the most harsh, physically painful time in my life. “I began training in music when I was little and attended a music university, but I never wanted to do it professionally. “I had plenty of time not doing anything, maybe since I was early-20s or something, when I was a student. Lawrence; that film also marked Sakamoto’s first score, and would later win the BAFTA in that category. In 1978, Sakamoto — at the time a classically-trained session musician — along with drummer/singer Takahashi, and bassist/keyboardist/vocalist Haruomi Hosono (previously of the famed Japanese rock bands Apryl Fool and Happy End) joined forces to found the the supergroup Yellow Magic Orchestra. In 2014, Sakamoto was first diagnosed with throat cancer, resulting in a yearlong hiatus from music as he battled the disease. Then I joined the Yellow Magic Orchestra because I wanted to work with those two very talented musicians. We would like to express our deepest gratitude to his fans and all those who have supported his activities, as well as the medical professionals in Japan and the U.S.

Experimental Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto has died, aged 71. The Grammy Award-winning electronic music star, who also won an Oscar and Bafta for his ...

So the music goes around the world and comes full circle. The film’s theme, titled “Forbidden Colours”, became an international hit. [Oscar](/topic/oscar) and [Bafta](/topic/bafta) for his film work, was diagnosed with cancer for a second time in 2021.

Ryuichi Sakamoto, the Oscar-winning Japanese composer famed for his scores for "The Last Emperor", "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" and other films, ...

His most celebrated work was 1987's "The Last Emperor" - a film in which he also acted. So the music goes around the world and comes full circle," he told WNYC public radio in 2010. Introduced to the piano as a toddler, Sakamoto lived for music.

He was a pioneer in electronics music of the late 1970s, founding the Yellow Magic Orchestra with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi. He has been nominated ...

She posted on her Instagram the years her father had lived: from January 17 1952, to March 28 2023 — and a photo of a worn out, half-broken piano. “How we make electricity is going to diversify, with fossil fuel and nuclear power declining,” Mr Sakamoto told the Associated Press in an interview in 2012. Mr Sakamoto also left his mark as a pacifist and environmental activist. Mr Sakamoto is survived by his daughter Miu Sakamoto, a musician. “To his final days, he lived with music,” it said. He was first diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014.

Ryuichi Sakamoto, a world-renowned Japanese musician and actor who composed for Hollywood hits such as “The Last Emperor” and “The Revenant,” has died.

“How we make electricity is going to diversify, with fossil fuel and nuclear power declining,” Sakamoto told The Associated Press in an interview in 2012. At his home in New York, he gets electricity from a company that relies on renewables, he said. The statement expressed gratitude to the doctors who had treated him in the U.S. Sakamoto also left his mark as a pacifist and environmental activist. “To his final days, he lived with music,” it said. He was first diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014.

Mr Sakamoto was a pioneer of the electronics music of the late 1970s and founded the Yellow Magic Orchestra, also known as YMO, with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro ...

She posted on her Instagram the years her father had lived: from January 17 1952, to March 28 2023 — and a photo of a worn out, half-broken piano. “How we make electricity is going to diversify, with fossil fuel and nuclear power declining,” Mr Sakamoto told the Associated Press in an interview in 2012. Mr Sakamoto also left his mark as a pacifist and environmental activist. Mr Sakamoto is survived by his daughter Miu Sakamoto, a musician. “To his final days, he lived with music,” it said. He was first diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014.

Ryuichi Sakamoto, the legendary musician of Yellow Magic Orchestra and 'Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence' fame, has died – read the NME obituary.

He would enjoy a long, fruitful and acclaimed career in scoring for the screen, from his Oscar-winning work for 1987’s The Last Emperor (in which he also had a supporting role) to 2015’s The Revenant, which earned him a Grammy nomination, and even a 2019 Black Mirror episode. In the wake of his departure, it’s hard to imagine that there will ever be another like Ryuichi Sakamoto. The Japanese artist and innovator died last Tuesday (March 28), [ his passing only revealed to the public yesterday (April 2)](https://www.nme.com/news/music/pioneering-electronic-musician-ryuichi-sakamoto-has-died-aged-71-3424656). He stated that performing live would be “difficult”, but he hoped to work as much as possible. The avant-garde techniques he honed during the album’s recording process were also expanded upon in live concerts, which he would perform till the end of the decade. “The cancer might come back in three years, five years, maybe 10 years. The band’s self-titled release in 1978 would instantly make Sakamoto and his brethren household names in Japan. His 1980 follow-up ‘B-2 Unit’, however, transported listeners from the warm glow of Yellow Magic Orchestra and ‘Thousand Knives’ into complete desolation. Perhaps one of the reasons Sakamoto felt untouchable was that despite a breathtaking body of work built over several decades, and a life-changing throat cancer diagnosis in 2014, he never stopped working. Hosono also roped in drummer Yukihiro Takahashi, and the trio would become known to international audiences as Yellow Magic Orchestra. Even when Yellow Magic Orchestra were having a ball, they were leading the way. There’s a league of musicians whose deaths have felt particularly earth-shattering, because of a naïve, but widely shared, presumption that they would simply live on forever.

The award-winning composer took a particularly strong anti-nuclear stance that put him at odds with Japanese officialdom.

“(Rokkasho) is hugely profitable for the general contractors. But he was also an advocate for peace and environmental issues, in particular taking a strong anti-nuclear stance that put him at odds with Japanese officialdom. They know nuclear power is unnecessary and dangerous, and that it will be dangerous for hundreds of future generations because of the radioactive waste.

Japanese composer and electronic music pioneer behind the soundtrack for the 1983 film Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence.

With the Austrian guitarist and composer Christian Fennesz he recorded Sala Santa Cecilia (2005), Cendre (2007) and Flumina (2011). He and Byrne teamed up to record the single [Psychedelic Afternoon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUuKhMS-Aek) to aid tsunami survivors. Thomas Dolby featured on the pulsating [Field Work](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdq-Pn6xPBE) from Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia (1986), the track accompanied by an ingeniously conceived video, while for Neo Geo (1987) Sakamoto enlisted [Iggy Pop](https://www.theguardian.com/music/iggy-pop), Bill Laswell, [Bootsy Collins](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/apr/14/bootsy-collins-funkadelic-funk) and Sly Dunbar. YMO paused their activities in 1984, though the trio continued to collaborate on each other’s solo work, and they reformed to make the album Technodon (1993). He formed a group of musicians called NML (No More Landmines), which featured [Firecracker](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkkFST5qrLg), from their 1978 debut album, was itself sampled in Afrika Bambaataa’s Death Mix. Born in Tokyo, Ryuichi was the only child of Keiko (nee Shimomura), a hat designer, and Kazuki Sakomoto, a literary editor. For the opening of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics he provided [El Mar Mediterrani](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4AzXwtfHck). The soundtrack, which won him a Bafta for best film music, contained the Sakamoto/Sylvian composition [Forbidden Colours](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1YkHJJi-tc), a vocal version of the film’s main theme, which was a Top 20 hit in Britain. [electronica](https://www.theguardian.com/music/electronicmusic), Sakamoto was able to combine his skills as an academically trained musician with an aptitude for electronic music and an ear for countless musical styles. [Andy Partridge](https://www.theguardian.com/music/xtc) from XTC, and the electrofunk track Riot in Lagos proved inspirational for the likes of Mantronix and Afrikaa Bambaataa. He won an Academy Award (along with his fellow composers David Byrne and Cong Su) for his soundtrack to

Twitter account Tech Product Bangers has compiled Nokia 8800 ringtones and alerts – most of which the late pioneering Japanese musician created.

[A Tribute to Ryuichi Sakamoto: To The Moon and Back ](https://crackmagazine.net/article/album-reviews/to-the-moon-and-back-ryuichi-sakamoto-review/)was released last November to mark the musician’s 70th birthday, featuring reworked versions of his music by artists including Thundercat, Devonté Hynes, Alva Noto and David Sylvian. In addition to his film scores, extensive solo and collaborative releases and output as one third of Yellow Magic Orchestra, Sakamoto created many of the signature mobile phone ringtones and alerts for the Nokia 8800 back in 2005. Please take a listen, some lovely sounds here.”

Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, who won an Oscar for The Last Emperor and a Bafta for Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, has died aged 71.

Sakamoto also played Imperial Japanese Army officer Masahiko Amakasu in the film. He also starred in the film as POW camp commander Captain Yonoi. A statement from his management, Commmons, said: “While undergoing treatment for cancer discovered in June 2020, Sakamoto continued to create works in his home studio whenever his health would allow.