TSO Hosts Studio Ghibli’s Legendary Composer Joe Hisaishi [UPDATE June 22]

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra is hosting famous Studio Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi at the Roy Thomson Hall, starting today through Saturday.

With such a great year for anime fans who saw Hayao Miyazaki’s latest film The Boy and the Heron, this year will have us hearing another great anime legend. The Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) will be hosting the iconic Japanese composer and conductor, synonymous with Studio Ghibli and their films by Miyazaki-san, Joe Hisaishi. Hisaishi-san will be returning to Toronto at the Roy Thomson Hall, performing from today (Thursday, June 20th) to Saturday, June 22nd.

The legendary Japanese composer/conductor/arranger had worked with Miyazaki-san and Studio Ghibli all the way back to Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. This powerhouse duo of director and composer has been compared to that of Steven Spielberg and John Williams. One of Hisaishi-san’s most well-known orchestral compositions was coming up with the theme for the Academy Award-winning film Spirited Away. The theme “One Summer’s Day” has been so popular, with over 62 million Spotify streams as of March 2024.

The first performance from Hisaishi-san in Toronto with the TSO was back in 2022 at Meridian Hall. The two-day limited concert was called “Joe Hisaishi in Concert.” Now, he makes his triumphant return with “Hisaishi Conducts Hisaishi.” Audiences will be able to hear Maurice Ravel’s “La Valse”, the aforementioned renown suite from Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away, and his very own Symphony No. 3 “Metaphysica.”

Hisaishi-san has also made his name in the video game industry. He has also been known to collaborate on the video game series Ni no Kuni with about 50 years of music experience. Here is a well-rounded list of Hisaishi-san’s most notable works, from Studio Ghibli films, video games to live-action films:

• Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)
• Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986)
• My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
• Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989)
• A Scene at the Sea (1991)
• Porco Rosso (1992)
• Sonatine (1993)
• Kids Return (1996)
• Princess Mononoke (1997)
• Hana-bi (1997)
• Kikujiro (1999)
• Brother (2000)
• Spirited Away (2001)
• Dolls (2002)
• Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)
• Ponyo (2008)
• Departures (2008)
• Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch (2011)
• The Wind Rises (2013)
• The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013)
• Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom (2018)
• The Boy and the Heron (2023)

Be sure to grab tickets as soon as possible, as Hisaishi-san’s last visit with the TSO sold-out quickly! Tickets and event details are available on the TSO official website. A concert reaction will be updated here to hear about how the event went, stay tuned.

[UPDATE] “Hisaishi Conducts Hisaishi” Reaction

The seats were pretty much sold out for its third and final day of performances, from the great composer Joe Hisaishi, alongside the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO)! The whole program consisted of three parts, beginning with Hisaishi-san’s Symphony No. 3 “Metaphysica.” While I never heard his pieces outside of the Studio Ghibli films, each movement felt cinematic. There was a wide range of emotional beats, consisting of whimsical adventures to somber moments of sadness.

Next, Hisaishi-san conducted Maurice Ravel’s “La Valse”, to which it was a piece that felt hugely as an inspiration to his works. While it was a shorter piece, it had a lot of triumphant sounds from the brass family and some extra umpf from the percussion crew. At this point, the arrangement of the orchestra already moved around twice.

For a third time, they re-arranged the TSO musicians to fit a grand piano center stage. For Hisaishi-san’s grand finale for the Spirited Away Suite, he played the piano while conducting! Those piano keys sung volumes for how delicate that iconic theme was from the anime film. The moment those keys were hit, my body had the strangest reaction. I went from feeling chilly to boiling hot! My brain and my body could not handle the nostalgia; I was transported back to being a five-year-old boy hearing this for the first time.

But this was not all. After a rousing standing ovation and many cheering for an encore, Hisaishi-san left and returned to the stage. For him and the TSO’s final performance of the night, they performed “Merry-Go-Round of Life” from a different Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli film called Howl’s Moving Castle. Even after such a beautiful encore performance, they all received cheers and applause for about 10 minutes! Hisaishi-san came off the stage and back on about three or four times, bowing and showing his appreciation to everyone in the audience and in the orchestra.

I was very moved by the whole experience, and I will cherish this memory forever. It is hard to describe the elation I felt from Hisaishi-san’s conducting. His overall balance of evoking fantasy, loss and sadness, and playfulness is unparalleled.

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