ACCLAIMED JAPANESE COMPOSER JOE HISAISHI CONCLUDES AN EXTRAORDINARY YEAR

A SYMPHONIC CELEBRATION IS ONE OF 2023’S BIGGEST CLASSICAL ALBUMS WORLDWIDE

OVER 5 BILLION CAREER STREAMS, INCLUDING 75 MILLION FOR HIS NEW ALBUM

RECORD-BREAKING VINYL SALES AND INTERNATIONAL CHART SUCCESS

SELL-OUT ARENA SHOWS, INCLUDING WEMBLEY AND HOLLYWOOD BOWL

FIRST EVER GOLDEN GLOBE NOMINATION – 50 YEARS AFTER WRITING HIS FIRST SCORE

15 DECEMBER 2023 (TORONTO, ON) - 2023 has seen unprecedented global success for Joe Hisaishi. His album A Symphonic Celebration - Music from the Studio Ghibli Films of Hayao Miyazaki has become one of this year’s classical bestsellers with 75 million streams, international chart success and record-breaking vinyl sales in the US. His worldwide social media audience has hit 3.5 million followers and his career streams have surpassed 5.8 billion. He has sold out shows around the world, and, to top off his extraordinary year, Joe Hisaishi has also received his first ever Golden Globe nomination for his soundtrack to the new Studio Ghibli movie The Boy And The Heron – 50 years after penning his first score.

Hisaishi, who just turned 73, has reached a new audience through social media and through his live shows. He’s amassed over 57 billion TikTok views, 2.2 billion Instagram views and 235 million Facebook views. His music has inspired 21.7 million TikTok creations and 1.2 million Instagram creations, while his YouTube channel has topped one million subscribers. A video clip from one of his live performances went viral earlier this year, clocking up 6 million views on a single TikTok post (see here). He has toured the US, UK, Austria and Japan this year, with sell-out shows at the Hollywood Bowl, Vienna’s Musikverein, and Wembley Arena – the latter marked his UK debut, performing to a total of 25,000 fans across two nights and earning critical acclaim for his music of “exceptional beauty” (Telegraph, 5-star review).

Joe Hisaishi signed to Deutsche Grammophon in March, and three months later released his debut album on the label, A Symphonic Celebration – just weeks after his debut at the prestigious Vienna Musikverein with the Wiener Symphoniker (available to stream on STAGE+ here). The album is a collection of his own symphonic arrangements of his Studio Ghibli scores, including Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke and My Neighbor Totoro, recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the composer conducting. Upon release, it topped multiple classical charts around the world, including the US, Japan and France. When the vinyl release followed in September, Hisaishi broke chart records. Not only did he reach No.6 in the German pop charts, but in the US he had the biggest ever sales week for a classical album on vinyl since Luminate began electronically tracking music sales in 1991.

Joe Hisaishi ranks among Japan’s greatest composers of all time and is famed worldwide for his collaborative work with Oscar-winning director and Studio Ghibli founder Hayao Miyazaki. Their creative partnership began in 1984 with the post-apocalyptic anime feature Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and continues to this day with the latest Studio Ghibli feature The Boy And The Heron. The music for his new film has earned Hisaishi his very first Golden Globe nomination.

Hisaishi’s vast catalogue includes over 100 film scores and around 30 studio albums. He has also written compositions for the concert hall, most recently his Viola Saga which premiered in 2022. His soundtracks have won 8 Japanese Academy Awards and have spawned theatre shows such as the Olivier Award-winning My Neighbour Totoro with the Royal Shakespeare Company, which Hisiashi executive produced and was described as “a tender and remarkably beautiful show” (Financial Times).

No matter how listeners come to hear Joe Hisaishi’s music – through films, shows, live performances, recordings or on social media – it is undeniable that his unique scores are beloved around the world.

Joe Hisaishi performing at Wembley, September 2023

A Symphonic Celebration is out now – https://dg.lnk.to/ASymphonicCelebration

There is also a limited edition 12” white marbled vinyl disc entitled Symphonic Pieces – Collector’s Edition featuring two bonus tracks out now – https://dg.lnk.to/CollectorsEdition