About

RSC: My Neighbour Totoro (West End/Barbican, London 22-23 and 23-24).

Joe Hisaishi first became interested in minimal music when he was a student at Kunitachi College of Music, Japan and started his career as a contemporary music composer. His work with MKWAJU in 1981 and the release of his first album, Information, in the following year kicked off his career as a solo artist.

From Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) through to The Boy and the Heron (2023), Hisaishi has produced music for 11 Hayao Miyazaki films. He also composed the music for Hana-Bi directed by Takeshi Kitano, Departures directed by Yojiro Takita, Villain directed by Sang-il Lee, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya directed by Isao Takahata, and What a Wonderful Family! series directed by Yoji Yamada.

Joe Hisaishi is a renowned and skilled performer, ranging from piano soloist to orchestra conductor. Alongside major Japanese orchestras, he has conducted the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Singapore Symphony Orchestra and many more. In 2017, he also began a world tour of Joe Hisaishi’s Symphonic Concert: Music from the Studio Ghibli Films of Hayao Miyazaki (visiting London, Paris, Melbourne, San Jose, Los Angeles, New York, Prague, Brussels and Lyon). The success of the tour is unparalleled.

In recent years, he has actively worked as a classical music conductor and composed new works in a contemporary music style, including TRI-AD for Large Orchestra (2016), The East Land Symphony (2016), Ad Universum (2019), Border Concerto for 3 Horns and Orchestra (2020) and Viola Saga (2022). Hisaishi has collaborated with a wide range of artists, including Philip Glass, David Lang, Mischa Maisky and Terry Riley.

Since 2014, he has been working as a producer and conductor, and holding contemporary music concerts with his JOE HISAISHI presents MUSIC FUTURE (also recorded as a live album). In 2019, he also led a concert series Future Orchestra Classics (FOC) and released a Beethoven Symphony recording that was given a Special Prize from the 57th Record Academy Awards in Japan, in 2019.

He has been appointed as Composer in Residence and Music Partner with New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra from September 2020, and Principal Guest Conductor with Japan Century Orchestra from April 2021.

In 2023, the Deutsche Grammophon released its first Joe Hisaishi album, A Symphonic Celebration: Music from the Studio Ghibli Films of Hayao Miyazaki, which reached No.1 on the Billboard chart. He also has been Composer-in-Association for Royal Philharmonic Orchestra since 2024 and Music Director for Japan Century Orchestra since 2025. His unique input as a contemporary music composer is highly appreciated, and his continuous enthusiasm for musical activities that go beyond ordinary creative work is appreciated worldwide.

Led by Phelim McDermott and Lee Simpson, Improbable is an award-winning theatre company that defies categorisation. At the heart of our artistic practice is improvisation. Whether in performance, rehearsal or development, the practice and philosophy of improvisation is at the core of our creation process. The breadth of Improbable’s experience is unrivalled and we occupy a vital space in the landscape of UK and international theatre, working with a huge range of partners nationally and internationally across sectors and scales.

Other recent on-stage collaborations and projects have included: The Hours, Metropolitan Opera; Perfect Show for Rachel created by Zoo Co at Barbican (winner Off West End Award, Access); An Improbable Musical, Royal & Derngate, Northampton; Tao of Glass, with Factory International, Perth Festival, Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen, Hong Kong New Vision Arts Festival and Carolina Performing Arts – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in association with Naomi Milgrom AO and Akhnaten (Olivier Award-winner for Best Opera Production, GrammyR Award for Best Opera Recording), English National Opera. We were awarded Producer of the Year at The Stage Awards in 2023.

Beyond our work on stage, we use Open Space Technology to create and hold diverse and deeply democratic spaces that bring communities together to work on urgent issues. We do this for the theatre sector through our Devoted & Disgruntled programme and work with other sectors and organisations through Open Space For Hire and Improbable For Business. Improbable is a core supporter of M/Others Who Make, an international network for women and non-binary people who care about creating, and create whilst caring.

The Royal Shakespeare Company is a theatre and learning charity that creates world class theatre, made in Stratford-upon-Avon and shared around the world, performing plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries, as well as commissioning an exceptionally wide range of original work from contemporary writers. Our purpose is to ensure that Shakespeare is for everyone, and we do by that unlocking the power of his plays and of live performance and out learning and education work throughout the UK and across the world.

We believe everybody’s life is enriched by culture and creativity. We have trained generations of the very best theatre makers and we continue to nurture the talent of the future. Our transformative Learning programmes reach over half a million young people and adults each year, and through our Creative Placemaking and Public Programme we create projects with and for communities who have not historically engaged with our work. We are a leader in creative immersive technologies and digital development.

We have a proud record of innovation, diversity and excellence on stage and are determined to grasp the opportunity to become an even more inclusive, progressive, relevant and ambitious organisation.

We have one of the UK’s largest arts learning programmes, working with over 1,000 schools each year to broaden access to high quality arts learning and transform experiences of Shakespeare in schools. Through our national partnership programme with schools and regional theatres we target areas of structural disadvantage, including 26 areas of multiple deprivation across the country, from Cornwall to Middlesbrough. Research shows that our approaches to teaching Shakespeare support the development of reading and writing skills, accelerate language acquisition and development, raise aspirations and improve student attitudes to school and learning in general. They also foster well-being, self-esteem, empathy, resilience and tolerance and promote critical-thinking, creative, analytical, communication and problem-solving skills.

We are committed to being a teaching and learning theatre and we are the only arts organisation to have been awarded Independent Research Organisation status. We create world class theatre for, with and by audiences and theatre makers of all ages. We provide training for emerging and established theatre makers and arts professionals, for teachers and for young people. We share learning formally and informally. We embed training and research across our company, work and processes.

We recognise the climate emergency and work hard to embed environmental sustainability into our operations, creative work and business practice, making a commitment to continually reduce our carbon footprint.

Keep Your RSC supports our mission to create theatre at its best, unlocking Shakespeare and transforming lives. Thousands of generous audience members, trusts and foundations and partners supported Keep Your RSC since 2020, alongside a £19.4 million loan from the Culture Recovery Fund, we are thrilled to be welcoming audiences back. It will take time to recover, to reopen all our theatres, and many years to repay the loan and the support and generosity of our audiences is more important than ever. Please donate at rsc.org.uk/donate.

The RSC is supported using public funding by Arts Council England
The work of the RSC is supported by the Culture Recovery Fund
New Work at the RSC is generously supported by The Drue and H.J. Heinz II Charitable Trust
The RSC Acting Companies are generously supported by The Gatsby Charitable Foundation
RSC £10 Tickets supported by TikTok