Born 1952 in Tokyo.
Made his debut as a solo artist with “Thousand Knives” in 1978, and joined the Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) in the same year. He later moved his bases overseas but remained active in various fields centering around music even after the YMO had “spread out” (as the members put it, avoiding the expression “split up”). SAKAMOTO’s score for the movie “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence” won a BAFTA Award for Best Film Music, and his music for the movie “The Last Emperor” won an Academy Award for Best Original Score, and a Grammy Award for Best Album of Original Instrumental Background Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television. Numerous other movie soundtracks consolidated his international reputation also as a composer. Continuously pursuing innovation in sound, he has been creating a number of installation works such as “LIFE - fluid, invisible, inaudible ...” made in 2007 with TAKATANI Shiro on commission by the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM]. Highly concerned also about social issues, he has been involved in the forest conservation/reforestation project ”more trees,” the charity event “NO NUKES” promoting non-nuclear power, the ”School Music Revival” and “Tohoku Youth Orchestra” projects in support of the areas affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake, and various other activities. In 2014 he was invited to function as guest director at the Sapporo International Art Festival (SIAF). Following scores for the movies “Nagasaki: Memories of My Son” and “The Revenant” in 2015, in 2017 SAKAMOTO released his first original album in eight years, “async,” which was also presented in the form of the “async” installation at WATARI-UM, The Watari Museum of Contemporary Art.