, known professionally as , is a Japanese composer, musical director, conductor and pianist, known for over 100 film scores and solo albums dating back to 1981. Hisaishi's music has been known to explore and incorporate different genres, including minimalist, experimental electronic, Western classical, and Japanese classical. He has also worked as a music engraver and arranger.
He has been associated with director and animator Hayao Miyazaki since 1984, having written scores for all but one of Miyazaki's films. He is also recognized for his music for filmmaker 'Beat' Takeshi Kitano, including A Scene at the Sea (1991), Sonatine (1993), Kids Return (1996), Hana-bi (1997), Kikujiro (1999), Brother (2000), and Dolls (2002), and for the video game series Ni no Kuni. He was a student of anime composer Takeo Watanabe.
Life and career
Early life
Hisaishi was born in Nakano, Nagano, Japan, as . He started learning violin at the Violin School Suzuki Shinichi at the age of four, and began watching hundreds of movies each year with his father. He attended the Kunitachi College of Music in 1969, where he majored in music composition, and collaborated with minimalist artists as a music engraver.
In 1974 Hisaishi wrote music for the anime series Gyatoruzu, and composed some of his other early works, under his given name. He also composed for Sasuga no Sarutobi (Academy of Ninja) and Futari Daka (A Full Throttle).
In the 1970s, Hisaishi's compositions were influenced by Japanese popular music, electronic music and New Age music, and by the Japanese electronic band Yellow Magic Orchestra. He developed his music from minimalist ideas and expanded toward orchestral work. Around 1975, he presented his first public performance. His first album, MKWAJU, was released in 1981; his second, the electropop-minimalist Information, was released a year later. His first major anime scores were for Hajime Ningen Gyatoruz (1974) and Robokko Beeton (1976).
As he became better-known, Hisaishi formulated an alias inspired by American musician and composer Quincy Jones: "Quincy", pronounced "Kuinshī” in Japanese, can be written using the same kanji in "Hisaishi"; and "Joe" came from "Jones".
Anime film music
In 1983, Hisaishi was recommended by Tokuma, who had published Information, to create an image album for Hayao Miyazaki's animated film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. It was the first of many of Miyazaki's films Hisaishi would score. (Their collaboration has been compared to that of director Steven Spielberg and composer John Williams.)
In 1985, Hisaishi founded his own recording studio, Wonder Station. In 1986, he scored Laputa: Castle in the Sky for Miyazaki's newly established Studio Ghibli; then in the 1990s, scored the Ghibli films Porco Rosso and Princess Mononoke. Hisaishi's compositions (including eight theatrical films and one OVA) become well-known as a style associated with early anime. He also composed for such TV and movie hits as Sasuga no Sarutobi, Two Down Full Base, Tonde Mon Pe and the anime Tekuno porisu 21C (all 1982), Oz no mahôtsukai (1982), Sasuraiger (1983), Futari Taka (1984), and Honō no Alpen Rose (1985). He also scored the sci-fi adventure series Mospeada (1983). Other films he scored included Mobile Suit Gundam Movie II: Soldiers of Sorrow (1981), Mobile Suit Gundam Movie III: Encounters in Space, (1982), Birth (Bâsu) (1984), Arion (1986), Robot Carnival (1987), Totoro (1988), Crest of the Royal Family and Maison Ikkoku – Apartment Fantasy (both 1988), Venus Wars (1989), Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), Porco Rosso (1992) and Ocean Heaven (2010). He also did theme-song arrangements and composed other anime opening, closing, and insert title theme songs such as Mahō Shōjo Lalabel (1980), Hello! Sandybell (1981), Meiken Jolie (1981), Voltron (1981), Ai Shite Knight (1983), Creamy Mami, the Magic Angel: Curtain Call (1986), and Kimagure Orange Road: The Movie (1988).
Hisaishi also developed a solo career, began to produce music. In 1989, he released his first solo album Pretender, on his new Wonder Land Inc. label.
1998–2004
In 1998, Hisaishi provided the soundtrack to the 1998 Winter Paralympics. The next year, he composed the music for the third installment of The Universe Within (NHKスペシャル 驚異の小宇宙 人体III 遺伝子), a series of popular computer-animated educational films about the human body produced by NHK and the score for the Takeshi Kitano film Kikujiro, whose title track Summer became one of his most recognized compositions.