Sakamoto, Japanese Oscar-winning composer, dies aged 71
THE GUARDIAN – Ryuichi Sakamoto, the Japanese musician whose remark-ably eclectic career strad-dled pop, experimentalism and Oscar-winning film composition, died aged 71. Sakamoto’s management company said he had been undergoing treatment for cancer.
As a member of Yellow Magic Orchestra along-side Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi, Saka-moto created joyous and progressive electronic pop in the late 1970s and ear-ly 1980s, alongside solo releases. He acted along-side David Bowie in the 1983 film ‘Merry Christ-mas, Mr Lawrence’ and composed its celebrated theme, the first in a series of film scores including Os-car-winning work in 1987 with David Byrne and Cong Su for Bernardo Bertoluc-ci’s ‘The Last Emperor’. Following ‘The Last Emper-or’ (in which he also had an acting role), he collaborat-ed with Bernardo Berto-lucci again for ‘The Last Buddha,’ and with ‘Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence’ director Nagisa Oshima for Gohatto.