Joe Hisaishi began his career as composer in a modernist style and started to develop his own brand of minimal music when he graduated from conservatory in Japan. Since 1981, he has released nearly forty solo albums. His cd Beethoven: Complete Symphonies earned him the 2019 Record Academy Award in Japan. His first CD on Deutsche Grammophon, A Symphonic Celebration (2023), hit number 1 on US Billboard Classical Albums and Classical Crossover Albums Chart twice.
Hisaishi has produced music for more than eighty films, for which he has won many awards. Starting with Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), he has produced music for Hayao Miyazaki’s films (Studio Ghibli) including My Neighbor Totoro (1988) and The Boy and the Heron (2023). He also composed the music for Takeshi Kitano’s HANA-BI (1998), Departures (2008) directed by Yojiro Takita, Villain (2010) directed by Sang-il Lee, Isao Takahata’s The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2013), and the series What a Wonderful Family! (2016-18) directed by Yoji Yamada.
Since 2014, he has been working as a producer and conductor of hugely popular concert series. Between 2017 and 2025, the Joe Hisaishi Symphonic Concert world tour sold out venues across the globe including Madison Square Garden in New York (three nights), La Défense Arena in Paris, London’s Wembley Arena, and Olympic Hall in Munich, concluding with three shows at Tokyo Dome drawing a total audience of 130,000.
Since 2016, Hisaishi been active as a conductor of classical music and as a composer of symphonic works, including four symphonies. His Harp Concerto, commissioned mainly by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, received its world premiere in November 2024. He has also conducted such orchestras as The Cleveland Orchestra, the Helsinki Philharmonic and the symphony orchestras of Vienna London, Chicago, Toronto and San Francisco. In 2025 he made his BBC Proms debut with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
The government of Japan honoured Hisaishi with the Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon in 2009 and The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette in 2023. He has been composer-in-association of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra since April 2024, and music director of the Japan Century Symphony Orchestra since April 2025 and was appointed composer in residence of the Philadelphia Orchestra in October 2025.