(CelebrityAccess) — Ryuichi Sakamoto, the Gramming-winning Japanese composer, and producer, known for his pioneering explorations of electronic music, has died. He was 71.
According to a statement from his representatives, Sakamoto died on March 28th while undergoing treatment for cancer that was originally discovered in 2020.
Sakamoto began his career while at university in the 1970s as a session musician, producer, and arranger but first came to widespread public acclaim as a co-founder of the influential Japanese electronic music group Yellow Magic Orchestra.
Sakamoto released his first solo album Thousand Knives of Ryūichi Sakamoto in 1978 and would go on to release more than 20 albums as a solo artist, exploring multiple styles of electronic music.
Along with his work as a solo artist, Sakamoto began working in film as well, both as a composer and arranger, as well as an actor. His compositions are featured in Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor, which earned him an Academy Award and a Grammy along with fellow composers David Byrne and Cong Su.
Other films in which his work appears include Pedro Almodóvar’s Tacones lejanos (High Heels) (1991); Bertolucci’s The Little Buddha (1993); Oliver Stone’s Wild Palms (1993); John Maybury’s Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon (1998); Brian De Palma’s Snake Eyes (1998) and Femme Fatale (2002); and Oshima’s Gohatto (1999), among others.
Along with his work as a composer, Sakamoto was an outspoken opponent of nuclear power and was a member of the anti-nuclear organization Stop Rokkasho. He organized the ‘No Nukes’ concert in 2012, which featured more than 18 groups, including Yellow Magic Orchestra and Kraftwerk.
He was also a vocal critic of copyright laws, arguing that they were incompatible with modern technology.
“[In] the last 100 years, only a few organizations have dominated the music world and ripped off both fans and creators” he told the Guardian in 2011 interview, noting that “with the internet we are going back to having tribal attitudes towards music.”
