Joe Hisaishi

About Joe Hisaishi

Joe Hisaishi (久石 譲, Hisaishi Joe) is a Japanese composer, musical director, conductor and pianist, born December 6, 1950 in Nagano. He started his career as a composer of modern music when he was still a student at the Kunitachi College of Music. At that time, he was into minimalist music. His name, “Hisaishi Joe” (family name first) came from “Quincy Jones”. The kanji for “Hisaishi” could be read as “Kuishi”, which is close to the Japanese pronunciation of “Quincy”, and “Joe” of course came from “Jones”. Hisaishi himself chose this name, when he needed a stage name.