Farewell to one of the most influential and famous composers known. Ryuichi Sakamoto has died aged 71 of age following a complicated cancer of the throat from which he had suffered for years. The music says goodbye to this great Oscar-winning Japanese musician.
If it was last March 28 that the composer’s life was definitively extinguished, it was this weekend that the news of his death broke on his official profile on Twitter. In the message published on social networks, the date of birth and death of the Japanese simply appeared: January 17, 1952 – March 28, 2023.
Thousands of people wanted to send some farewell words to Sakamoto in response to the news, especially by people dedicated to music, from DJs to songwriters.
“An inspiration to us all” or “An extraordinary musician and pedagogue”, wrote some of the Internet users who admired his work.
Of the last emperor at the Barcelona Olympics
Ryuiuchi Sakamoto, who publicly announced that he had been diagnosed with terminal throat cancer in 2014, has composed songs for filmmakers such as Pedro Almodóvar in high heels or Bernardo Bertolucci in the last emperor, work duly awarded an Oscar in 1988; in addition to a Grammy and a Golden Globe.
But it should also be noted as one of his most famous works the theme of the Anglo-Japanese film Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983)a job that allowed him to work as an actor and star in an unforgettable kiss with the great David Bowie.
It is also to him that the birth and the existence of the Orchestra of Yellow Magic in which he worked alongside Haruomi Hosono and Yukijiro Takahashi. Without forgetting his participation in the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992 with his composition for the opening, The Mediterranean Sea.
With his group YMO, in which he worked as a keyboard player and singer, he obtained hits like Computer game / Firecracker (1978) y behind the mask (1978) and in 1999 he obtained, for the first time, that an instrumental theme was number one in Japan with Energy flow.