page_title: Joe Hisaishi
section_title: 1998–2004: Worldwide success
hierarchical_section_title: Joe Hisaishi / Life and career / 1998–2004: Worldwide success
caption_attribution_description: English: Joe Hisaishi in Krakow, 2011 Polski: Joe Hisaishi w Krakowie, 2011
context_page_description: Mamoru Fujisawa, known professionally as Joe Hisaishi, is a Japanese composer and musical director known for over 100 film scores and solo albums dating back to 1981. Hisaishi is also known for his piano scores.
  While possessing a stylistically distinct sound, Hisaishi's music has been known to explore and incorporate different genres, including minimalist, experimental electronic, European classical, and Japanese classical. Lesser known are the other musical roles he plays; he is also a typesetter, author, arranger, and conductor.
  He has been associated with animator Hayao Miyazaki since 1984, having composed scores for all but one of his films. He is also recognized for the soundtracks he has provided for filmmaker 'Beat' Takeshi Kitano, including A Scene at the Sea, Sonatine, Kids Return, Hana-bi, Kikujiro, and Dolls, as well for the video game series Ni no Kuni. He was a student of anime composer Takeo Watanabe.
context_section_description: In 1998, Hisaishi provided the soundtrack to the 1998 Winter Paralympics. The following year, he composed the music for the third installment in a series of popular computer-animated educational films about the human body. Again in 1999, he composed the score for the Takeshi Kitano film Kikujiro, whose title track Summer went on to become one of Hisaishi's most recognizable compositions.
  In 2001, Hisaishi produced music for another Kitano film, Brother, and Hayao Miyazaki's animated film, Spirited Away. He also served as executive producer of the Night Fantasia 4 Movement at the Japan Expo in Fukushima 2001. On October 6, Hisaishi made his debut as a film director in Quartet, having also written both its music and script. The film received excellent reviews at the Montreal Film Festival. His first soundtrack for a foreign film, Le Petit Poucet, was released in the same year.
  Another Miyazaki film, Howl's Moving Castle, for which Hisaishi composed the score, was released on November 20, 2004, in Japan. From November 3 to 29, 2004, Hisaishi embarked on his "Joe Hisaishi Freedom – Piano Stories 2004" tour with Canadian musicians. In 2005, he composed the soundtrack for the Korean film, Welcome to Dongmakgol (웰컴 투 동막골). He also partook in Korea's historically landmarked big budget drama series production by composing the soundtrack for Korea's MBC drama series, The Legend (태왕사신기 "The Story of the First King's Four Gods"), which released in 2007. Hisaishi has a large fan base in Korea due to the popularity of Miyazaki films.
caption: Hisaishi in Kraków, 2011
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