Ryuichi Sakamoto's last performance before an audience: Suntory Hall, March 26, 2022

About the artist

Ryuichi Sakamoto was born in Tokyo in 1952 and studied composition at the Tokyo University of the Arts through graduate school^[1]. He worked as a session player while still a student and made his recording debut in 1976 on an album with percussionist Toshiyuki Tsuchitori^[2]. In 1978 he released his first solo album, Thousand Knives, and formed Yellow Magic Orchestra with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi; the synth-driven trio is credited with setting off Japan's "technopop" boom of the early 1980s^[1]. YMO broke up in 1983 and briefly re-formed in 1993^[2].

His film work brought international awards. He wrote the score for Nagisa Oshima's Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), in which he also acted opposite David Bowie, and won a BAFTA for the music. His score for Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor won the Academy Award in 1988, the first for a Japanese composer, and a Grammy; The Sheltering Sky (1990) brought a Golden Globe^[2][1]. He wrote music for the opening ceremony of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, and in 1999 his piano piece "Energy Flow," used in a TV commercial, became a hit at home^[2].

He founded the forest-conservation group more trees in 2007^[1]. A fund he set up after the 2011 disaster led to the founding of the Tohoku Youth Orchestra in 2014, with Sakamoto as its director^[3]. After treatment for oropharyngeal cancer in 2014, he returned in December 2015 with the score for the film Nagasaki: Memories of My Son (Haha to Kuraseba)^[4], and in 2017 released the album async^[1].

Why this was the last show

Nobody billed this concert as a farewell. The Tohoku Youth Orchestra had played an annual concert every March since 2016^[5], with Sakamoto on stage as its music director. At the March 31, 2019, concert he played piano on "Blu" and promised to write the orchestra a piece of its own for 2020^[6].

On January 5, 2020, he gave a charity concert with Sayuri Yoshinaga at the Okinawa Convention Center theater in Ginowan. He said he thought it was his first time playing in Okinawa and that a long-held dream had come true; he played "Miruku Yugafu (undercooled)" with singer Misako Koja and accompanied Yoshinaga's readings on piano^[7]. Two months later, the orchestra's fifth concert, planned for March 2020, was cancelled because of COVID-19. "It's a shame it was cancelled," he told the Ryukyu Shimpo^[8]. The new piece meant for that concert was "Ima Jikan ga Katamuite"^[9].

On December 12, 2020, he streamed a solo piano concert to the world from a studio in Tokyo with no audience, "Ryuichi Sakamoto: Playing the Piano 12122020." Staged by the art collective Rhizomatiks, it ran through 14 pieces, among them "Bibo no Aozora," "energy flow," "The Last Emperor" and "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence," and ended in an improvisation. He remarked that it was not so simple to say that live is real and digital is fake^[10]. The stream was a one-time event with no archive^[11].

In January 2021 he announced on his official website that he had undergone surgery for rectal cancer, writing that from now on he would be "living with cancer." He said he would keep working on music as far as treatment allowed^[4].

In January 2022 the orchestra announced its first concerts in three years: Morioka on March 22, Miyagi on March 23, Fukushima on March 24 and Tokyo on March 26. Sakamoto was listed as music director and pianist, with a note that, because he was still receiving medical treatment, he might not be able to appear^[9][5]. He sat out the Iwate concert, saying he was not well enough, and the Miyagi and Fukushima dates were cancelled after the earthquake of March 16^[12]. Tokyo, the last stop, was the only one he played.

There was no audience performance after that. From June 2022 the literary monthly Shincho serialized his memoir, "Boku wa Ato Nankai, Mangetsu o Miru Darō" ("How many more times will I see the full moon?")^[13]. In September he recorded solo piano at Studio 509 of NHK's Broadcasting Center in Shibuya, a few pieces a day^[14]. When the stream was announced in October, his comment began: he no longer had the stamina to get through a concert live. This might be the last time people would see him perform in this format, he added^[15].

He was not scheduled to appear at the orchestra's Tokyo concert on March 26, 2023^[16]. Two days later, on March 28, Sakamoto died at 71; he had been receiving treatment for a cancer found in June 2020^[17].

What is known about the day

Suntory Hall, which opened in 1986 in Akasaka, is one of Tokyo's main halls for classical music^[18]. March 26, 2022, was a Saturday, and the concert started at 2 p.m.^[9] On the bill: the Tohoku Youth Orchestra under conductor Toshio Yanagisawa, Sakamoto at the piano, Sayuri Yoshinaga as reader, four vocal soloists, the Tsunagaru Gasshodan ("connected choir"), and Mari Watanabe as host^[19]. For the orchestra it was the fifth concert, and the first in three years^[20].

The program opened with "Ima Jikan ga Katamuite," about 13 minutes long. It begins with quiet violins, moves in an 11-beat meter that Sakamoto said he rarely used, and ends with a bell struck 11 times. According to the news site ENCOUNT, all 95 players held still until the last sound had faded^[20]. The hall's archive lists the performance as a world premiere, while ENCOUNT reports that the piece was first played at the Iwate concert on March 22^[19][20].

Then Sakamoto walked out. It was the first time he had heard the piece live, he said; he was choked up, really moved, and the playing had been very good. He was laughing on purpose, he admitted, because otherwise he would cry^[20][21]. He had written it with prayer and requiem in mind, he said, but hearing it now he could not help thinking of 3.11 and of Ukraine; he wished he had worn blue and yellow, the colors of the Ukrainian flag, instead of black^[20]. According to Daily Sports, he said it could even end up sounding like the Ukrainian national anthem^[12]. Whether the final bell sounded like a requiem or like hope, he said, was up to each listener. He asked one of the young players whether the piece had been hard; when the answer was yes, he confessed he had not thought very hard when writing it^[20].

Next came music from his score for Nagasaki: Memories of My Son and "still life," as Yoshinaga read six poems, among them Ryoichi Wago's "Ki ni Tazuneyo" and Kazuko Tō's "Daichi"^[19]. In "still life," Sakamoto played the piano with the orchestra beneath her reading^[20][21]. Afterwards Yoshinaga, wondering aloud whether she had done the poems justice, said his playing carried her off to a faraway world, and that she hoped the fighting would end. Sakamoto answered that even one good thing would be something^[21]. She also said his playing had let her read with a happy heart^[20].

The concert ended with Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, the "Choral"^[19]. The Tsunagaru Gasshodan, about 60 singers from disaster-hit areas including Kumamoto and Fukuoka, joined the orchestra and soloists and were cheered^[20]. "still life" is the only piece that press reports confirm Sakamoto played that day; whether there was an encore could not be confirmed.

On stage he said nothing about his illness^[12]. In a statement after the concert, he said he wanted to mourn the people affected by and lost to 3.11 and the natural disasters and accidents, nuclear ones included, that followed, and that he wished with all his heart for peace in the world^[12]. Two of Yoshinaga's readings that day, performed with the music from Nagasaki: Memories of My Son, were later included on the CD The Best of Tohoku Youth Orchestra 2013~2023^[22][23].

What the show left behind

When it reported his death, the Japanese music site Natalie described the streamed solo concert of December 2022 as Sakamoto's last stage^[24]. Shuenroku counts only performances in front of an audience as live shows, so the streamed concerts and the film sessions are covered here in the text, and the page is the Suntory Hall concert.

"Ryuichi Sakamoto: Playing the Piano 2022" streamed on December 11, 2022: about 60 minutes and 13 pieces recorded in September at NHK's Studio 509, including the theme from Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence and "Tong Poo" from his YMO days. He did not speak during the set; afterwards he said many of the pieces were being played as solo piano for the first time, so he had thought carefully about the arrangements. More than 30,000 people watched the first showing at the same time, across 30 countries and regions^[14]. The same program was shown four times between December 11 and 12, Japan time^[15].

On January 17, 2023, his 71st birthday, came the album 12: twelve pieces chosen from sketches he had recorded like a diary while ill, each titled with its recording date, and his first original album since async in 2017. He wrote that he had no intention of making anything; he simply wanted to bathe in sound^[25]. One track, "20220302 - sarabande," is dated just over three weeks before the Suntory Hall concert, and he played it again at the September sessions^[25][26].

Those sessions became the film Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus, directed by Neo Sora: a 103-minute black-and-white concert film of 20 pieces recorded in September 2022 at NHK's Studio 509. It screened out of competition at the 80th Venice International Film Festival in 2023 and opened in Japan on May 10, 2024^[27]. The Japanese Blu-ray followed on December 11, 2024, with the 20 pieces running from "Lack of Love" to "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" and "Opus - ending"^[26].

On March 26, 2023, two days before his death, the Tohoku Youth Orchestra played its Tokyo concert at Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall^[16] and performed "Ima Jikan ga Katamuite" again^[22]. In a message for the concert, Sakamoto noted that the piece he had written for them had finally been premiered the year before, said he looked forward to the orchestra showing everything it had, and thanked its supporters^[16]. On March 20, 2024, the CD The Best of Tohoku Youth Orchestra 2013~2023 collected performances from across those years, including two of Yoshinaga's readings recorded at Suntory Hall on March 26, 2022, and the first release of "Ima Jikan ga Katamuite," from the 2023 concert^[23][22].

The orchestra's March 2024 concert became a memorial, with 14 of Sakamoto's works. Yoshinaga, who had appeared at every one of its concerts since 2016, said in tears afterwards that she had read as if he were just beyond the ceiling^[28]. The orchestra has kept going, and returned to the Suntory Hall stage on March 26, 2026^[29]. In a message on its website, Sakamoto had asked people to keep supporting it for many years to come^[3].

In October 2026 it was announced that "Ryuichi Sakamoto | Dialogue," opening in December at MoN Takanawa in Tokyo, would use the performance data captured over eight days of the September 2022 sessions to drive a self-playing piano. It is not a playback of a recording: the piano itself makes the sound^[30].

The last time an audience heard Sakamoto play, his piano was one voice inside an orchestra of young people from the disaster zone, keeping company with a reading of poems.