Joe Hisaishi – Video of Vienna 2023 concert + album release

STAGE+, the music subscription service and livestreaming platform of Deutsche Grammophon, the world’s oldest record label, has released a 98-minute video of the concert that Joe Hisaishi performed on 30/3/2023 in Vienna with the Wiener Symphoniker (read more).

Joe Hisaishi, a living legend of film music, conducted the Wiener Symphoniker in a concert presenting music from some of his best-known film scores alongside his Second Symphony. The composer of music for over 100 films, including many for Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli, fuses multiple styles – from minimalism and electronics to Western and Japanese classical traditions – presenting an inimitable sound world all his own.

This concert, filmed in late March 2023, marks an historic moment, as he conducts his music, including the Symphonic Suite from “Princess Mononoke”, in the sold-out Golden Hall of Vienna’s legendary Musikverein. This concert was part of the new concert series ‘CINEMA:SOUND’ created by Tomek Productions.

Artists:

Soloist: Katharina Melnikova (Soprano)
Ensemble: Wiener Symphoniker
Conductor: Joe Hisaishi

The program was the following:

Symphony No.2

What the World Is Now?
Variation 14
Nursery Rhyme

Mládí for Piano and Strings

Summer
HANA-BI
Kid’s Return

One Summer’s Day (from “spirited Away”)
Symphonic Suite from “Princess Mononoke” with Katharina Melnikova (Soprano)

The Legend of Ashitaka
Ta-Ta-Ri Gami
The Departure
Kodamas
Shishigami
Princess Monokoke
The World of the Dead
The World of the Dead II
Adagio of Life and Dead
Ashitaka and San

My Neighbour Totoro

You can watch a clip of the concert here (“Joe Hisaishi – Ashitaka and San (from ‘Princess Mononoke’) Live in Vienna”):

You can watch the full concert here:

https://www.stage-plus.com/video/vod_concert_APNM8GRFDPHMASJKBSPJ6CO

You can also watch and additional interview here:

On Joe Hisaishi in Vienna – 30/03/2023 – 14 min (link)

On the other hand, Deutsche Grammophon has released on 30/6/2023 the album “A Symphonic Celebration – Music From The Studio Ghibli Films Of Hayao Miyazaki” recorded by Joe Hisaishi in London with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Official description:

“For his first album on Deutsche Grammophon, Joe Hisaishi, the revered Japanese composer whose work has become synonymous with the magical Studio Ghibli animations of director Hayao Miyazaki has created an exciting series of symphonic arrangements of his original soundtracks for such Ghibli classics as Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke and My neighbor Totoro. Fittingly titled A Symphonic Celebration, it presents state-of-the-art recordings of his extraordinary work for this much-loved artistic force in animated movie-making. Recorded in London by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by the composer, its tracks are newly arranged by Hisaishi for symphony orchestra and features Grace Davidson, Avi Avital, Bach Choir and Stephen Morris.

Hisaishi ranks among Japan’s greatest composers of all time and is famed worldwide for his collaborative work with Oscar-winning director, animator and Studio Ghibli founder Hayao Miyazaki. Their creative partnership began in 1984 with the post-apocalyptic anime feature Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and has since developed to the point that they are now likened to other legendary director-composer pairings, including Hitchcock and Herrmann, Fellini and Rota, Leone and Morricone, and Spielberg and Williams. Indeed, Hisaishi’s reputation has been secured by the fact that his soundtracks have won eight Japanese Academy Awards, an unprecedented achievement. He is equally acknowledged, however, as a conductor and as a composer of contemporary classical music, much of it minimalistic and experimental in nature, like that of friends and colleagues such as Philip Glass, Terry Riley and Nico Muhly.”

Tracklist (Deluxe Edition CD – 2 Discs):

DISC 1