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Japanese musician and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto has passed away at the age of 71. Sakamoto was known, among other things, for the music he composed for well-known films, such as The Last Emperor, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence in The Revenant.
In Japan, Sakamoto rose to prominence in the late 1970s as a member of the three-piece synthesizer rock group Yellow Magic Orchestra. The band was a pioneer in the electronic music scene. The group also had international success and was nominated for several Grammys.
For his music for The Last Emperor won Sakamoto an Oscar in 1988. He was the first Japanese to win the award for Best Original Music Score. In Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), for which he wrote the soundtrack, he also played himself. The leading role in this film was for British pop icon David Bowie.
The soundtrack’s title track became a hit worldwide:
In 1992, Sakamoto composed the music for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Barcelona, which attracted more than a billion viewers.
Sakamoto married three times and had four children. In January 2021, he announced that he had been diagnosed with rectal cancer and was recovering from surgery. On his website, he wrote, “As of right now, I’m living with cancer, but I hope to be making music for a while.”
