TOKYO: World-renowned Japanese musician and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto died at the age of 71, his office announced Sunday.
Sakamoto, the keyboardist of the legendary electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra known as YMO, revealed in June 2022 that he had been battling stage 4 cancer, reported Japan’s Kyodo News Agency.
The Tokyo native also starred in the 1983 war film “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence,“ and won an Oscar and Grammy for scoring the 1987 movie “The Last Emperor.”
A funeral for Sakamoto, who died last Tuesday, was already held with only close relatives in attendance, the office said. The exact cause of death was not immediately known.
With his interest in environmental and peace issues, Sakamoto had been actively involved in the anti-nuclear power movement in recent years in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster triggered by a killer earthquake and tsunami.
The son of Kazuki Sakamoto, a renowned editor at the publishing house Kawade Shobo Shinsha, Sakamoto began studying music writing at the age of 10 and was fascinated by the Beatles and Debussy.
In 1978, Sakamoto formed YMO with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi. Their futuristic techno-pop music, making full use of synthesizers, was in sync with the times in the late 1970s, when the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and the arcade game “Space Invaders” became hits. -Bernama
