Ryuichi Sakamoto to be honoured at Jecheon International Music & Film Festival
Japanese composer and Yellow Magic Orchestra founder Ryuichi Sakamoto will be posthumously honoured at the 19th Jecheon International Music & Film Festival this summer. Sakamoto died from cancer in March aged 71.
For his contributions to film music and music supervision, Sakamoto has been announced as the recipient of the Jecheon Film Music Award. Sakamoto has also previously won an Oscar, a BAFTA, a Grammy, and two Golden Globes for his work in this area.
Sakamoto’s Academy Award came for his work on Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1987 epic The Last Emperor, for which he received ‘Best Original Score’. Sakamoto also worked on the music for The Sheltering Sky, The Revenant, and Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai.
The Jecheon film music award began as an honour for Korean film composers who have impacted film music in the country, before expanding to Asian composers in 2017.
Last year, this was further expanded to international film composers as the award was given to Justin Hurwitz, who scored the music for Damien Chazelle’s La La Land and Whiplash.
This year marks the 19th edition of the festival, which will take place in South Korea this summer, from Thursday, August 10th to Tuesday, August 15th. A tribute concert for Sakamoto will also take place on Saturday, August 12th at the Jecheon Stadium.
Since his death, many other figures and organisations in the music world have paid tribute to Sakamoto. From Massive Attack to Johnny Marr, artists came together to pay tribute to the composer’s enormous influence on electronic music and film scoring.
Sakamoto was first diagnosed with cancer in 2014, which returned in 2021. He played his final concert last December, Ryuichi Sakamoto: Playing the Piano 2022, which was live-streamed and comprised of four performances that he combined.
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