The Los Angeles Philharmonic named Joe Hisaishi its Composer-in-Residence on Thursday, and the post comes with a five-year artistic partnership running from the 2027/28 season through 2031/32. The orchestra announced it on its website, and the scope is larger than an honorary title.
Hisaishi will write new works specifically for the LA Phil. He will also appear in recurring performances at the organization’s three Los Angeles venues: the Hollywood Bowl, The Ford, and Walt Disney Concert Hall. The agreement covers recording projects and education and community programs developed with the Joe Hisaishi Foundation.
The LA Phil described the arrangement as “a five-year creative partnership,” according to SoraNews24, which also notes that the residency begins with the 2027/28 concert season. That gives the orchestra roughly a year before Hisaishi’s first official season in the role.
What Hisaishi said
In a statement released with the announcement, Hisaishi tied the appointment to his own history with the orchestra. “Los Angeles holds a special place in my musical life, from the premiere of my Harp Concerto with the LA Phil’s Emmanuel Ceysson at Walt Disney Concert Hall to our recent performances at the Hollywood Bowl and The Ford,” he said. He added that he was “deeply honored” by the appointment and looked forward to “exploring new musical horizons with this extraordinary orchestra and sharing the spirit of discovery with audiences in Los Angeles and beyond.”
The Harp Concerto reference is not a courtesy line. Hisaishi has been writing concert music alongside his film work for decades, and the LA Phil has programmed him as a composer rather than only as the man behind the Ghibli soundtracks.
The Ghibli run, and the numbers behind it
Hisaishi has scored every Hayao Miyazaki feature since Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, which puts My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle and The Boy and the Heron on the same resume. He also wrote the score for Isao Takahata’s The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, and he was executive producer on the stage adaptation of My Neighbor Totoro that opened at London’s Barbican Centre in 2022. That production side of his career has kept expanding: the Spirited Away stage play is touring with a 2027 cast announcement, and Ghibli Park extended its Valley of the Witches area through June 2027.
The Japanese government gave him the Medal of Honor in 2010, the same year he collected his sixth Japanese Academy Award for Best Music. In 2023 it awarded him the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette.
His pull in Los Angeles is already documented. In July he played a run of concerts at the Hollywood Bowl across three days on his way to setting a couple of Guinness World Records, per SoraNews24. An orchestra does not hand a five-year residency to a guest conductor who fills a hall once. It hands one to a name that sells the building out repeatedly.
Why this one is worth more than a headline
Anime composers have crossed into the classical world for years, but usually as a one-off: a symphony concert here, a film-with-orchestra screening there. A residency is a different commitment. The title usually means the person writes for that ensemble, appears with it across a season and takes part in its education work. New commissions are the part that lasts, because a piece written for a specific orchestra enters its repertoire and tends to stay there.
For fans in Southern California, the practical read is simple. Hisaishi will be a recurring presence at three venues from the 2027/28 season onward, not a single night that sells out in minutes and then vanishes. The three are the Hollywood Bowl, the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre beside it and Walt Disney Concert Hall downtown, which between them cover a 17,500-seat outdoor shed and a much smaller indoor hall. Details on individual programs and ticket dates have not been announced, and the LA Phil has not said which new works Hisaishi will write first.
The Joe Hisaishi Foundation gets a named role in the deal, which is unusual for this kind of announcement. Most orchestras name a composer and stop there. Including the foundation puts education and community programming inside the agreement from day one, and it suggests the residency is meant to leave something in Los Angeles beyond a run of well-attended nights.
The timing lands well for the orchestra. Film-score concerts have become one of the reliable ways to fill a concert hall with people who do not otherwise buy classical tickets, and Hisaishi is among the few composers who can draw that crowd without a screen above the stage.
Hisaishi is 75 and has been working for more than 50 years. A five-year appointment that begins when he is 76 is not a retirement lap. It is a commission schedule.
Featured image: composer Joe Hisaishi, via his official website and Anime News Network (© Nick Rutter).
Source: Anime News Network and SoraNews24; original announcement via the LA Philharmonic.
