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Ryuichi Sakamoto Filmography
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Ryuichi Sakamoto (born January 17, 1952, Nakano, Tokyo, Japan) (坂本 龍一
Sakamoto Ryūichi) is a Japanese musician, composer, producer and actor.
He attended university as Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, where he earned a B.A. in music composition and an M.A. with special emphasis on both electronic and ethnic music. Sakamoto recorded his first solo album in 1978, which included the songs "Thousand Knives" and "The End of Asia".
Around the same time, Sakamoto joined as a member of the internationally successful Japanese synth-rock/synth J-Pop trio Yellow Magic Orchestra, along with co-founders Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi. The band charted a British top 20 hit with "Computer Game" in the late 1970s (and are also remembered for "Technopolis", "Firecracker" and "Tong Poo"), and were a seminal influence on the acid house and techno movements of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Sakamoto has collaborated with David Sylvian on a number of singles and most of Sylvian's albums. He has also collaborated with, among others, Fennesz, Towa Tei (originally from the group Deee-Lite),
Thomas Dolby, Youssou N'Dour, Roddy Frame (frontperson for Aztec Camera),
Iggy Pop (originally from The Stooges) and Caetano Veloso.
He appeared in the 1983 Nagisa Oshima film Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence alongside British rock singer
David Bowie; he also wrote the film's musical score, and the theme song "Forbidden Colours," sung by Sylvian, became a minor hit. As a long time fan of Virginia Astley's music he produced her 1986 album
Hope In A Darkened Heart which included David Sylvian as a guest. He won the Academy Award for his score to the 1987 Bernardo Bertolucci film The Last Emperor. He has also written soundtracks for Bertolucci's 1993 film The Little Buddha,
Pedro Almodovar's 1992 film High Heels,
Oliver Stone's 1993 television series Wild Palms, and John Maybury's 1998 film, '.
In 1992, Sakamoto composed the score of the opening ceremony for the Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain, a telecast with an audience of over a billion viewers.
In 1998 Italian ethnomusicologist Massimo Milano published Ryuichi Sakamoto. Conversazioni, a collection of essays and conversations.
Sakamoto was married to a Japanese pianist and singer Akiko Yano, collaborating with her on some of her recordings.
He is also known as a critic of copyright law, arguing that it is antiquated in the information age.
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LiteratureBest of BBtv: Cooking Young Bamboo Shoots with Joi Ito (score by Ryuichi Sakamoto)
The Boing Boing tv crew is taking this end-of-summer week off from production, so we're revisiting some of our favorite episodes from the last couple of months -- fun stuff you may have missed. Today, one of my personal all-time favorites: takenoko (???), young bamboo shoots, with Joi Ito and original music by Ryuichi Sakamoto. -- XJ You may know Joi as a serial entrepreneur, a twittering globetrotter VC, a World of Warcraft junkie, or the CEO of Creative Commons, but he has a more traditional side, too. In this video, Ito welcomes us into his back yard in Japan, where he and his partner Mizuka teach us how to hunt for and prepare this traditional seasonal delicacy from a lush bamboo forest. The episode is accompanied by an original score composed by Grammy, Academy Award, and Golden Globe-winning composer, Ryuichi Sakamoto. The legendary electronic music pioneer is also an outspoken environmental advocate. His recent reforestation initiative, ?More Trees,? supports the planting of trees around the world to help offset carbon emissions. To-date, 2 billion trees have been planted mostly through work with country governments including Turkey, Ethiopia and Mexico. Link to English-language PDF with more info on the project. Sakamoto co-founded the seminal synthpop trio Yellow Magic Orchestra, and has scored or contributed to movie soundtracks including The Last Emperor, Merry Christmas Mister Lawrence, Babel, and the work of director Pedro Almodóvar. Boing Boing tv thanks him for generously contributing this beautiful, evocative score. After the jump -- Joi Ito's family recipe for yummy takenoko just like mom used to make. Special thanks to the Ito family for sharing their traditions with us. Here's Joi's blog post about his background with Ryuichi, and here's Joi's post from today about how this video came together....
Published: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 18:36:18 GMT - Source: Boingboing.Net - Read the article
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