CSOradio
CSOtv
CSOradio
American fans of Japanese composer-conductor-pianist Joe Hisaishi have much to savor this season, with a new disc, movie score and U.S. tour all available.
Hisaishi, who sold out his four debut concerts with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in June 2024, is now back in movie theaters nationwide with “A Big, Bold Beautiful Journey,” a romantic fantasy starring Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie. It marks a milestone for Hisaishi, known for his Studio Ghibli anime films such as “Spirited Away” (2001), "Howl’s Moving Castle" (2004) and “The Boy and the Heron” (2023), because it’s his first score for a Hollywood-produced film.
On Aug. 8, Deutsche Grammophon released his latest disc, “Joe Hisaishi Conducts,” which documents a concert at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall on July 31, 2024. The program featured Hisaishi’s own 9/11-themed The End of the World and the Japanese premiere of The Desert Music by his friend and colleague Steve Reich, performed by Future Orchestra Classics, under the baton of the composer-conductor-pianist himself.
It is Hisaishi’s third full-length album for DG, with which he signed an exclusive agreement in 2023. It follows on the success of “A Symphonic Celebration” and the EP “Mládí,” both showcasing Hisaishi’s iconic film music, and “Joe Hisaishi in Vienna”(2024). The five-movement The End of the World was originally inspired by Hisaishi’s visit in 2007 to Ground Zero in New York City, and later expanded to include newly composed vocal material.
“I went there after 9/11,” he recalls in the disc’s liner notes. “When I saw the ruins of the World Trade Center, I was inspired to write The End of The World, as I wondered to myself what the world would be like in the 21st century.” The resulting three-movement suite for 12 cellos, double bass, harp, percussion and piano was first performed in 2008. Its title was borrowed from another source of inspiration: American singer-songwriter Skeeter Davis’ 1962 hit of that name (with music by Arthur Kent, lyrics by Sylvia Dee).
Established by Hisaishi in 2019 in his mission to share his love of classical music, Future Orchestra Classics is an orchestra praised for its vivid performances. Hisaishi and the FOC were joined at Suntory Hall by the Philharmonic Chorus of Tokyo, and in The End of the World, by soprano Ella Taylor.
By 2015, Hisaishi had transformed the suite into a five-movement work for solo voice, chorus and orchestra. The original three movements were titled “Collapse,” “Grace of the St. Paul” (a reference to St. Paul’s Chapel, a sanctuary for emergency workers after 9/11) and “Beyond the World.” To these, he added “D.e.a.d,” reimagined from his orchestral suite DEAD to include a vocal part with lyrics by Hisaishi’s daughter Mai, a singer and lyricist.
The fourth movement, “Beyond the World,” features choral writing incorporated in 2009, with lyrics in Latin by Hisaishi. Serving as the epilogue is his recomposed version of Kent & Dee’s “The End of the World.”
As part of Hisaishi’s current U.S. tour, his The End of the World received its U.S. premiere on Sept. 13-14 by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hisaishi (who personally chose the Pittsburgh Symphony for the work’s U.S. premiere).
The fourth movement, “Beyond the World,” features choral writing incorporated in 2009, with Latin lyrics by the composer himself. Acting as epilogue is his recomposed version of Kent & Dee’s “The End of the World.” The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called it "not only an elegy for the victims of the 9/11 attack but for a new death of global innocence.
“It was a coup for the Steel City, musically, and was all the more poignantly symbolic for Pittsburgh’s proximity to the Flight 93 National Memorial” (which features a musical monument of wind chimes, unveiled in 2018).
The fall leg of his U.S. tour wraps up with two concerts Nov. 13-14 in Philadelphia. In the spring, Hisaishi returns to the States for more concerts, including four with him conducting the CSO in his works on April 23-26 at Symphony Center.
