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Ryuichi Sakamoto is still being treated for cancer but has lost a lot of strength
Tokyo, December 7 (EFE).- Famous Japanese musician and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, who is battling stage IV cancer, says he is still undergoing treatment, but has lost a lot of physical strength, which prevents him from keeping up regular concerts. “I found out I had cancer in June 2020. I haven’t done many glaring activities since then and I’m still being treated,” explained the pianist in a statement published this Wednesday on the occasion of an “online” concert to be held on 11 December. . In the statement, Sakamoto explains that the cancer has robbed him of “a lot of physical strength,” making it difficult to perform for an hour or an hour and a half, however, he “decided to give it a go.” The pianist, who suffered from throat cancer in 2014 from which he managed to recover, confirmed in early 2021 that he had colorectal cancer which would now have spread to other organs in the form of metastases. “Now that I have cancer again at 70, I don’t know how many times I will see the full moon in my life, but in the meantime I want to continue composing until the last moment, just like Bach and Debussy did, for the which I have great admiration for,” he told Shincho Literary Magazine last June. The December 11 concert can be seen not only in Japan, but also in Spain, Portugal, the United States or Brazil, among other countries, and tickets, still available, are priced at $30 (about 28 euros). The composer, awarded the Oscar for best original soundtrack for the film “The Last Emperor”, would have undergone six surgeries in the last year, one of which lasted 20 hours to try to remove a primary tumor in the rectum and several others that had produced from metastases. Sakamoto is one of the most international Japanese creators of his time, with a complex work that has gone through several phases, from his first successful group, the experimental Yellow Magic Orchestra, to the creation of soundtracks. In this section he received numerous awards and wrote some well-known film soundtracks such as “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence” (Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, 1983), “The Last Emperor” (The Last Emperor, 1987) or “The Revenant” (The Revenant, 2015). (c) EFE Agency
