By YURI KAGEYAMA and MARI YAMAGUCHI (Associated Press)
TOKYO (AP) — Ryuichi Sakamoto, a world-renowned Japanese musician and actor who composed for Hollywood hits corresponding to “The Last Emperor” and “The Revenant,” has died. He was 71.
Japan’s recording firm Avex stated in an announcement Sunday that Sakamoto died on March 28 whereas present process therapy for most cancers.
He was first identified with throat most cancers in 2014. In 2022, he revealed that he had terminal most cancers, a yr after he disclosed affected by rectal most cancers.
Sakamoto was a pioneer of the electronics music of the late Seventies and based the Yellow Magic Orchestra, also called YMO, with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi.
Takahashi died in January.
Despite his battle with most cancers, Sakamoto launched a full-length album “12” on his 71st birthday in January, stating that composing had a “small healing effect on my damaged body and soul,” in accordance with the official assertion launched with the most recent album.
He was a world-class musician, successful an Oscar and Grammy for the 1987 film “The Last Emperor.”
Sakamoto was additionally an actor, starring within the BAFTA-winning 1983 movie “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.”
He was largely primarily based in New York in recent times, although he often visited Japan.
Born in Tokyo in 1952, Sakamoto began learning music on the age of 10 and was influenced by Debussy and the Beatles.
The assertion from Avex stated that regardless of his illness, when he was feeling comparatively effectively, he saved engaged on his music in his residence studio. “To his final days, he lived with music,” it stated.
The assertion expressed gratitude to the docs who had handled him within the U.S. and Japan, in addition to to all his followers around the globe. It referenced the phrases Sakamoto liked: “Ars longa, vita brevis,” which refers back to the longevity of artwork, irrespective of how quick human life may be.
Sakamoto additionally left his mark as a pacifist and environmental activist. He spoke out towards nuclear energy following the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear plant meltdowns attributable to an earthquake and tsunami.
He took half in rallies and made speeches in Tokyo, and was amongst a bunch of revered Japanese artists, just like the Nobel-winning novelist Kenzaburo Oe, who weren’t afraid to take an unpopular stand on political points.
In a July 2012 rally, he obtained up on stage and skim from notes on an iPhone, warning Japan to not threat individuals’s lives for electrical energy.
“Life is more important than money,” he stated in Japanese, then added in English, “Keeping silent after Fukushima is barbaric.”
He additionally appeared in promoting for Nissan electrical vehicles, though he acknowledged he obtained a bashing for being so business. At his residence in New York, he will get electrical energy from an organization that depends on renewables, he stated.
“How we make electricity is going to diversify, with fossil fuel and nuclear power declining,” Sakamoto informed The Associated Press in an interview in 2012. “People should be able to choose the kind of electricity they want to use.”
Funeral providers have been held with household and shut pals, the Avex assertion stated.
Sakamoto is survived by his daughter Miu Sakamoto, a musician. She posted on her Instagram the years her father had lived — from Jan. 17, 1952, to March 28, 2023 — and a photograph of a worn out, half-broken piano. He was separated from his former spouse, singer and composer Akiko Yano.
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Associated Press author Juwon Park in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”