Composer
Biography
Japanese composer, conductor, and pianist born in 1950, working under this stage name (his birth name is Mamoru Fujisawa). Since the early 1980s he has written more than a hundred film scores and solo albums, moving between minimalist, electronic, Western classical, and Japanese classical idioms. He has also worked as a music engraver and arranger over his long career. His first records, MKWAJU and Information, came out of an interest in minimalism, and his work with Hayao Miyazaki began with Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind in 1984 and went on through My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle, with further scores for Takeshi Kitano and Isao Takahata. Away from film he wrote The East Land Symphony, founded the Music Future concert series for contemporary music, and recorded A Symphonic Celebration with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in arrangements of his own film music.