cafe67 Posted April 2, 2023 Posted April 2, 2023 https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-65155073 2 1
RCADees Posted April 2, 2023 Posted April 2, 2023 Sadly I wake up to this news. But what a musical legacy we are left with. RIP Master Sakamoto.
075Congo Posted April 2, 2023 Posted April 2, 2023 Bought some of his music on the recommendation of Nirvana Sound........stunning music. RIP 1
Demondes Posted April 3, 2023 Posted April 3, 2023 (edited) Yes, sad was only 71 and still active in music Here is a great short article from patreon (should be free to read) https://www.patreon.com/posts/farewell-ryuichi-80934825?utm_medium=post_notification_email&utm_campaign=patron_engagement&utm_source=post_link here is a classic version of Technopolis ("Tokyo" from YMO in the 1970's and a more sombre piano only number Kodoku ("Solitude") from a 2004 Japanese film Edited April 3, 2023 by Demondes 2
digoxin Posted April 3, 2023 Posted April 3, 2023 RIP. So much emotion and story telling in his music. 'Ars longa, vita brevis.' Art is long, life is short,
mrbuzzardstubble Posted April 3, 2023 Posted April 3, 2023 R.I P Ryuichi. "Art is long, life is short" - Mrs Arthur Long.
cafe67 Posted May 18, 2023 Author Posted May 18, 2023 https://www.stereogum.com/2223663/ryuichi-sakamoto-created-this-playlist-for-his-own-funeral/news/
cafe67 Posted May 20, 2023 Author Posted May 20, 2023 https://sylvianvista.com/2023/05/19/forbidden-colours/
Ian McP Posted May 30, 2023 Posted May 30, 2023 https://www.stereogum.com/2223663/ryuichi-sakamoto-created-this-playlist-for-his-own-funeral/news/ Ryuichi Sakamoto Created This Playlist For His Own Funeral
Ian McP Posted July 13, 2023 Posted July 13, 2023 Screening at MIFF 2023 and no doubt will be on general release later in the year. Monster: directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda https://miff.com.au/program/film/monster < Hirokazu Kore-eda (Broker, MIFF 2022; Shoplifters, MIFF 2018) has maintained a fascinating, prolific career of exploring universal human impulses through the lens of fractured and makeshift families. His lauded latest film may recall both the interpretive re-visions of Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon and the touching central bond at the heart of Lukas Dhont’s Close (MIFF 2022), but setting it apart is its startlingly wondrous warmth. Adding to Monster’s atmosphere of well-meant misapprehension is a delicate piano score by Ryuichi Sakamoto – the subject of Stephen Nomura Schible’s eponymous MIFF 2018 documentary – in his final screen work before his death this March. > Stephen Nomura Schible https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1317469/ < Stephen Nomura Schible was born in December 1970 in Tokyo, Japan. He is a producer and director, known for Lost in Translation (2003), Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda (2017) and Ryuichi Sakamoto: async Live at the Park Avenue Armory (2018) > Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda (2017) I can highly recommend! Ryuichi Sakamoto: async Live at the Park Avenue Armory (2018) must watch this sometime! https://mubi.com/films/ryuichi-sakamoto-async-at-the-park-avenue-armory regards Ian
Ian McP Posted November 10, 2023 Posted November 10, 2023 Tues 31 Oct 2023 https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/oct/31/todd-eckert-on-his-heartfelt-tribute-to-ryuichi-sakamoto-kagami < Interview ‘We put his face back together again’: the groundbreaking show bringing Ryuichi Sakamoto back to life Shortly before his death this year, the iconic Japanese composer worked on mixed-reality concert, Kagami – featuring new music, 48 cameras and magic glasses for the audience Tue 31 Oct 2023 20.00 AEDTLast modified on Tue 31 Oct 2023 23.53 AEDT 15 Todd Eckert is explaining, in circuitous yet joyous fashion, how he first fell in love with the work of the Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. It’s a conversation that meanders through Eckert’s teenage visit to Preston, his years as a punk rock kid in Houston, Texas and his time producing the 2007 Joy Division film Control – yet ultimately always returns to Sakamoto’s astonishing songcraft. “Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence was not the first thing of his that I had heard – it may have been Left Handed Dream – but it was the first thing that I totally understood,” he says, sitting outside a Brooklyn cafe in bright yellow trainers. Over the last few years, Eckert has spent a great deal of time trying to distill his feelings towards Sakamoto and his music as he has worked to create Kagami, a mixed-reality concert, which premiered this past summer at Manchester international festival, and, simultaneously, at The Shed in New York. This December it will appear at the Roundhouse in London. Kagami is an extraordinary creation for many reasons – the sheer technical wizardry of its making, of course, but also the fact that the work serves as a heartfelt posthumous tribute. In 2014, Sakamoto was diagnosed with oropharyngeal cancer. After treatment, and a long period of remission, he announced a diagnosis of rectal cancer in 2021. He died in late March this year, at the age of 71. “Kagami is not meant to be a historical overview of his career at all,” Eckert says. “It’s supposed to be an energetic snapshot – because I don’t want anything that smacks of being encyclopaedic or Let Us Praise the Great Man. That’s just bullshit. I want it to be this feeling of currency. This is the way I would do it if he was here with me and that’s really, really important.” Optically transparent devices … the audience watches Kagami. Photograph: Marissa Alper On school mornings in his native Tokyo, the young Ryuichi Sakamoto would pass the cramped commuter journey listening to the sounds made by the train. “Anything can be music,” he would say many years later. “You have to open your ears all the time because anything could happen unexpectedly.” It was this essential curiosity that governed Sakamoto’s approach to sound throughout his life. Taking up the piano at six, and soon afterwards writing his own compositions, he developed an early fascination with Debussy and Bach. Later, it would be John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, Kraftwerk and John Cage; then studies in music composition at Tokyo University of the Arts, where his specialisms became electronic music and ethnomusicology. In 1978, Sakamoto joined Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi to form the pioneering electronic band Yellow Magic Orchestra; their influence would be felt everywhere from techno to acid house and hip-hop. That same year, he released his first solo album, Thousand Knives, which drew influences from Herbie Hancock, synthesisers, classical piano, Chinese history and the poetry of Mao Zedong. In the four and a half decades that followed, Sakamoto’s work continued to show great diversity: collaborations with David Sylvian, Talking Heads, Iggy Pop, Youssou N’Dour, Brian Wilson; a starring role, alongside David Bowie, in Nagisa Oshima’s Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, for which he also composed the score; a multi-genre, multi-media opera, Life, with contributions from Pina Bausch, Salman Rushdie, Bernardo Bertolucci and the Dalai Lama; multi-sensory collaborations with sculptors, mobile phone makers, champagne houses; 21 solo studio albums; Oscar-winning scores for The Last Emperor and The Revenant; an audio portrait of the passing of time, which included field recordings from New York, Tokyo, Kyoto and Paris, forest leaves underfoot, a tsunami-drowned piano, synths, strings and the poetry of Arseny Tarkovsky. Capturing the essence of this approach to music was the challenge for Eckert and his studio, Tin Drum. When Kagami was unveiled, audiences wore “optically transparent devices” through which they were able to watch Sakamoto at the piano, playing 10 compositions from Energy Flow to The Seed and the Sower. There was surround sound, a specially created scent, and throughout the performance, the audience members could rise from their seats and wander about. 48 cameras captured Sakamoto at the piano. Photograph: Courtesy of Tin Drum But the elegance of the event told little of the intricacy of its creation which required a volumetric capture studio with 48 cameras, all capturing 60 frames a second. Further complication was added by Sakamoto’s request to use a concert grand piano. The original plan was to shoot using a keyboard with weighted keys – a method that had worked well in test runs, and allowed for all camera angles. The size and structure of the grand piano, Eckert realised, would occlude many of the camera shots. Still, recognising how important the request was to the composer, he agreed. When all of the captured data came back five months later, Eckert’s heart sank. The images were so distorted that “Ryuichi, half the time, looked like one of those chestnuts that’s been split open.” But all was not lost. “I’m very fortunate to work with some unbelievable technologists,” he says, “and we created what is tantamount to a dimensional reconstruction. Ultimately we were able to put his face back together again.” https://www.theshed.org/program/299-kagami-by-ryuichi-sakamoto-and-tin-drum < KAGAMI by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Tin Drum JUN 7 – JUL 9, 2023 A groundbreaking mixed reality concert event created by legendary composer and artist Ryuichi Sakamoto in collaboration with Tin Drum >
Ian McP Posted December 18, 2023 Posted December 18, 2023 Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus https://www.melbournerecital.com.au/events/2024/ryuichi-sakamoto-opus/ Saturday 23 March 2024 7.30pm < The definitive swan song of a beloved maestro in a one-of-a-kind musical and cinematic experience. Legendary Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto lived many musical lives in his 71 years. On March 28, 2023, Sakamoto sadly passed away from cancer. In the final stages of his life, with touring and solo shows now impossible due to his health, he yearned to perform for the world one last time and leave us with one final unforgettable performance – featuring just him, his piano and a small film crew. Directed by Sakamoto’s son Neo Sora, and produced by Sakamoto’s wife and manager Norika Sora, the film was shot in monochrome at an empty NHK recording studio in one of the finest audio dynamics in Japan. Sakamoto curated a heartfelt selection of 21 compositions from across his storied career for the final time, captured with breathtaking intimacy and emotion. > 1
Demondes Posted December 20, 2023 Posted December 20, 2023 On 18/12/2023 at 2:59 PM, Ian McP said: Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus https://www.melbournerecital.com.au/events/2024/ryuichi-sakamoto-opus/ Saturday 23 March 2024 7.30pm < The definitive swan song of a beloved maestro in a one-of-a-kind musical and cinematic experience. Legendary Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto lived many musical lives in his 71 years. On March 28, 2023, Sakamoto sadly passed away from cancer. In the final stages of his life, with touring and solo shows now impossible due to his health, he yearned to perform for the world one last time and leave us with one final unforgettable performance – featuring just him, his piano and a small film crew. Directed by Sakamoto’s son Neo Sora, and produced by Sakamoto’s wife and manager Norika Sora, the film was shot in monochrome at an empty NHK recording studio in one of the finest audio dynamics in Japan. Sakamoto curated a heartfelt Yes this looks interesting, and i think it is also showing elsewhere around the country.
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