TOKYO (AP) — Ryuichi Sakamoto, a earth-renowned Japanese musician and actor who composed for Hollywood hits this kind of as “The Previous Emperor” and “The Revenant,” has died. He was 71.
Japan’s recording business Avex said in a statement Sunday that Sakamoto died on March 28 while undergoing treatment for most cancers.
He was 1st diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014. In 2022, he exposed that he had terminal cancer, a 12 months immediately after he disclosed struggling from rectal cancer.
Sakamoto was a pioneer of the electronics songs of the late 1970s and established the Yellow Magic Orchestra, also known as YMO, with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi.
Takahashi died in January.
Even with his fight with cancer, Sakamoto produced a whole-size album “12” on his 71st birthday in January, stating that composing experienced a “small therapeutic outcome on my ruined physique and soul,” according to the official assertion launched with the most recent album.
He was a entire world-course musician, profitable an Oscar and Grammy for the 1987 film “The Final Emperor.”
Sakamoto was also an actor, starring in the BAFTA-winning 1983 movie “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.”
He was generally based in New York in latest a long time, even though he on a regular basis frequented Japan.
Born in Tokyo in 1952, Sakamoto begun studying songs at the age of 10 and was motivated by Debussy and the Beatles.
The assertion from Avex claimed that in spite of his illness, when he was feeling reasonably nicely, he kept functioning on his tunes in his dwelling studio. “To his closing days, he lived with tunes,” it said.
The assertion expressed gratitude to the medical professionals who experienced taken care of him in the U.S. and Japan, as nicely as to all his followers about the globe. It referenced the phrases Sakamoto liked: “Ars longa, vita brevis,” which refers to the longevity of artwork, no make a difference how limited human everyday living could be.
Sakamoto also still left his mark as a pacifist and environmental activist. He spoke out versus nuclear electric power subsequent the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear plant meltdowns induced by an earthquake and tsunami.
He took part in rallies and built speeches in Tokyo, and was between a group of respected Japanese artists, like the Nobel-profitable novelist Kenzaburo Oe, who were not scared to choose an unpopular stand on political problems.
Go through Much more: Nobel-profitable author Kenzaburo Oe lifeless at 88
In a July 2012 rally, he bought up on stage and read from notes on an Iphone, warning Japan not to risk people’s life for electrical energy.
“Life is additional critical than revenue,” he said in Japanese, then additional in English, “Keeping silent after Fukushima is barbaric.”
He also appeared in promotion for Nissan electrical vehicles, despite the fact that he acknowledged he obtained a bashing for remaining so commercial. At his home in New York, he receives electrical energy from a organization that relies on renewables, he reported.
“How we make electric power is heading to diversify, with fossil gas and nuclear power declining,” Sakamoto told The Involved Press in an interview in 2012. “People should really be capable to pick the kind of electrical power they want to use.”
Funeral services have been held with relatives and shut friends, the Avex statement claimed.
Sakamoto is survived by his daughter Miu Sakamoto, a musician. She posted on her Instagram the several years her father had lived — from Jan. 17, 1952, to March 28, 2023 — and a photograph of a worn out, 50 percent-damaged piano. He was separated from his previous spouse, singer and composer Akiko Yano.
Related Press author Juwon Park in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.
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