Music from Studio Ghibli

Joe Hisaishi started to show an interest in minimalist music while he was studying at the Kunitachi College of Music. His career as a solo artist began with release of Mkwaju in 1981 and Information in 1982. Since then, Hisaishi has released nearly 40 solo albums. The CD Symphonic Celebration, released on Deutsche Grammophon in June 2023, twice hit No. 1 on the US Billboard Classical Albums & Classical Crossover Albums Chart.

Starting with Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), Hisaishi has produced music for Hayao Miyazaki films, including My Neighbor Totoro (1988) and The Boy and the Heron (2023). He has collaborated on the music production of more than 80 films at home and abroad, and his works have won many awards including several recognitions for Outstanding Achievement in Music from the Japan Academy Film Prize.

In 2004, he took on the position of principal music director of the New Japan Philharmonic World Dream Orchestra. Since 2014, he has been working as a producer and conductor, holding contemporary music concerts called Joe Hisaishi Presents Music Future. He also started to lead a concert series called Future Orchestra Classics in 2019. In recent years, Hisaishi has conducted classical music and composed contemporary works such as Symphony No. 2 (2021), Metaphysica (Symphony No. 3) (2021), and Viola Saga for Orchestra (2023).

He has collaborated with a wide range of artists including Philip Glass, David Lang, Mischa Maisky, and orchestras such as the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Melbourne Symphony, Singapore Symphony, London Symphony, American Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic, and Vienna Symphony, among others. He makes his San Francisco Symphony debut with this program.

Hisaishi was awarded the Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon in 2009 and the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, in 2023 from the Japanese government. He is music partner with the New Japan Philharmonic, principal guest conductor with the Japan Century Orchestra, and composer in association with the Royal Philharmonic. He is the music director designate with the Japan Century Symphony, taking up the post in April 2025.

Mai Fujisawa made her film debut at age four, singing Nausicäa Requiem for her father Joe Hisaishi’s soundtrack to Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Studio Ghibli’s first film. Other highlights include singing the opening theme for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—Part II and singing and writing lyrics for the World War I documentary Paper Lanterns. She also sang the main theme for Clouds Above the Hill, a long-running historical drama series on NHK TV about the Meiji Revolution, and performed the ending theme song for Ojarumaru, an anime television show that commemorated the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. In recent years, she has contributed to the revitalization of rural Japanese towns through the power of music, and is a goodwill ambassador for Nakano City. In 2022 she released the album Beautiful Harmony, and as part of Studio Ghibli concerts has performed at Radio City Music Hall and Madison Square Garden.

Janet Todd has performed on Studio Ghibli concerts with the National Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, and American Symphony at Madison Square Garden. She has also performed with opera companies across the United States, including Los Angeles Opera, Opera Santa Barbara, Opera Columbus, and Pacific Opera Project. In her native Australia, she has performed with Victorian Opera, Opera Australia, Pinchgut Opera, and appeared as a soloist with the Australian Ballet, Sydney Philharmonia, Perth Symphonic Choir and Baroque Orchestra, and Canberra Choral Society. She graduated from the Manhattan School of Music.

Kyle Pudenz frequently performs on violin, electric violin, mandolin, and guitar. He has performed with the classical crossover show Barrage 8, with whom he toured internationally and led educational outreach. Now based in Nashville, Tennessee, he has performed and toured with country, rock, and pop artists including RaeLynn, Colt Ford, Rodney Atkins, and Jared Blake. As a classical mandolinist, Pudenz has appeared with the National Symphony, Nashville Ballet, ALIAS Chamber Ensemble, and the Belmont Camerata. He first appeared with Studio Ghibli at Carnegie Hall in 2018.

Jenny Wong is Chorus Director of the San Francisco Symphony, as well as the associate artistic director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale. Recent conducting engagements include the Los Angeles Philharmonic Green Umbrella Series, Los Angeles Opera Orchestra, the Industry, Long Beach Opera, Pasadena Symphony and Pops, Phoenix Chorale, and Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles.

Under Ms. Wong’s baton, the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s performance of Frank Martin’s Mass was named by Alex Ross one of ten “Notable Performances and Recordings of 2022” in the New Yorker. In 2021 she was a national recipient of Opera America’s inaugural Opera Grants for Women Stage Directors and Conductors. She has conducted Peter Sellars’s staging of Orlando di Lasso’s Lagrime di San Pietro, Sweet Land by Du Yun and Raven Chacon, and Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire and Kate Soper’s Voices from the Killing Jar with Long Beach Opera in collaboration with WildUp. She has prepared choruses for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, including for a recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 that won a 2022 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance. She has also prepared choruses for the Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and Music Academy of the West.

A native of Hong Kong, Ms. Wong received her doctor of musical arts and master of music degrees from the University of Southern California and her undergraduate degree in voice performance from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She won two consecutive world champion titles at the World Choir Games 2010 and the International Johannes Brahms Choral Competition 2011.

The San Francisco Symphony Chorus was established in 1973 at the request of Seiji Ozawa, then the Symphony’s Music Director. The Chorus, numbering 32 professional and more than 120 volunteer members, now performs more than 26 concerts each season. Louis Magor served as the Chorus’s director during its first decade. In 1982 Margaret Hillis assumed the ensemble’s leadership, and the following year Vance George was named Chorus Director, serving through 2005–06. Ragnar Bohlin concluded his tenure as Chorus Director in 2021, a post he had held since 2007. Jenny Wong was named Chorus Director in September 2023.

The Chorus can be heard on many acclaimed San Francisco Symphony recordings and has received Grammy Awards for Best Performance of a Choral Work (for Orff’s Carmina burana, Brahms’s German Requiem, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 8) and Best Classical Album (for a Stravinsky collection and for Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 and Symphony No. 8).