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\n <\/p>\n\nSakamoto has devoted much of his time in recent years to environmental concerns \u2013 to turning Ego into Eco as he puts it. Beginning in 2001, he has made a huge attempt to use alternative energy for touring.<\/p>\n
\nNORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES
\nDATE\tCITY\tVENUE\tSHOWTIME\tTICKET PRICE
\nSun-Oct-17-10\tGlenside, PA\tKeswick Theatre\t8:00 PM\t$25, $29.50, $35
\nMon-Oct-18-10\tNew York, NY\tSkirball Center for Performing Arts\t8:00 PM\t$40
\nWed-Oct-20-10\tBoston, MA\tBerklee Performance Center\t8:00 PM\t$26, $36
\nFri-Oct-22-10\tMontreal, QC\tOutrement Theatre\t8:00 PM\t$28.50, $35
\nSun-Oct-24-10\tToronto, ON\tQueen Elizabeth Theater\t8:00 PM\t$39.50
\nTues-Oct-26-10\tChicago, IL\tVic Theatre\t8:00 PM\t$45
\nSat-Oct-30-10\tSeattle, WA\tMoore Theatre\t8:00 PM\t$29.50
\nMon-Nov-01-10\tVancouver, BC\tVogue Theatre\t7:30 PM\t$31.50
\nWed-Nov-03-10\tSan Francisco, CA\tRegency Ballroom\t9:00 PM\t$30, $37.50
\nFri-Nov-05-10\tLos Angeles, CA\tEl Ray\t9:00 PM\t$40<\/p>\n
\nFor further information:
\nDoreen D\u2019Agostino
\ndoreendagostino@earthlink.net 646-829-0652 – 917-916-2626
\n<\/a>
<\/p>\n
Ryuichi Sakamoto\u2019s legions of fans will have a new special 2-CD package to savor on September 28th (Decca Label Group): the two albums, playing the piano and out of noise, present a wide-ranging view into the world of this composer, musician, producer, actor, and environmental activist. Ryuichi Sakamoto will make a rare North American solo tour in October\/November, bringing his music to audiences through sustainable and ecologically sound touring. In addition, a carbon offset will be made for all carbon dioxide emissions resulting from the tour.<\/p>\n
\nSakamoto is best known for the scores to the films Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, The Last Emperor, The Sheltering Sky, High Heels, Little Buddha, Love is the Devil, Women without Men, and dozens more. He is also known as one of the founding fathers of electronic music, having been a part of the Yellow Magic Orchestra, formed in 1978, and he is still a major influence in the worlds of techno and ambient music.<\/p>\n
\nThe first CD, playing the piano, is a series of miniatures or \u201cself-covers,\u201d as Sakamoto refers to them \u2013 solo piano versions of his earlier works, including some of the famous film themes such as The Last Emperor (Oscar\/Grammy\u00ae\u2013winning soundtrack), Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence and The Sheltering Sky (Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score).<\/p>\n
\nThe second CD, out of noise, is arguably Sakamoto\u2019s most ambitious album to date in which he continues to explore the ambiguities between music and noise that have fascinated him for years. It is nothing less than a summing up of his sonic interests, from medieval European instruments to hi-tech electronics to the sounds of the besieged glaciers of the Arctic Circle. \u201cAs soon as you make a piano sound, it begins to vanish,\u201d Sakamoto explains, \u201cvanishing into noise. You can\u2019t tell when it becomes noise, when it\u2019s gone. That\u2019s the area I\u2019m interested in.\u201d Sakamoto has studied these dichotomies for years, especially in his landmark works with Alva Noto, which blazed a trail for the style now known as glitch electronica. In out of noise, his explorations extend even further \u2013 to the sounds of the environment. \u201cWe are surrounded by the sound of the environment,\u201d he explains. \u201cThat\u2019s music too, really.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nIn making out of noise, Sakamoto went to Greenland with the Cape Farewell Project, as part of their cultural response to climate change. He recorded under the surface of the water of the Arctic Sea, and on the surface of the glacial ice. These sounds haunt the aural landscape of out of noise – a landscape peopled by, among others, Austrian guitarist\/laptop artist Christian Fennesz, guitarist Cornelius (Keigo Oyamada), England\u2019s renowned early music group Fretwork, and Icelandic multi-instrumentalist Skuli Sverrisson.<\/p>\n
\nThere was even more to the experience than he had anticipated\u2026 \u201cThe local Inuit told us their folklore,\u201d he recalls. \u201cAccording to legend the highest goddess lives under the deep sea. When I recorded the sound of the wind on the glacier, it was like I was hearing the voice of the goddess.\u201d Sakamoto found it a hard project to leave: \u201cI felt a strong nostalgia, as if I left my soul on that glacier.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nIf Ryuichi Sakamoto had been born in 16th century Italy, we\u2019d know what to call him: a Renaissance Man. But since he was born in Japan in the mid-20th century, we have to string together words like composer, musician, producer, actor, and environmental activist. It’s a diverse r\u00e9sum\u00e9, but there are two things that match it: one is Sakamoto’s music \u2013 pioneering electronic works, globally-inspired rock, classical scores (including a massive opera) and of course those familiar soundtracks. The other is the list of awards on his mantle \u2013 among them an Academy Award, two Golden Globes, a Grammy, the Order of the Cavaleiro Admiss\u00e3o from the government of Brazil, The Silver Lion award (Venice Film Festival) and, in July 2009, he was named an Officier of the coveted Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the government of France. Perhaps most prized of all, was the UN Environment Programme\u2019s Echo Award, for his innovative and groundbreaking work in eco-friendly touring and music distribution.<\/p>\n
\nThough born in Tokyo, Sakamoto has been a true citizen of the world. He has written music inspired by the traditions of Okinawa, Indonesia, and Brazil; has reinterpreted the songs of Brazil’s late songwriter Antonio Carlos Jobim as a kind of world\/chamber music; and has collaborated with David Bowie, David Sylvian, dramatist Robert Wilson, author William S Burroughs, the Three Tenors’ Jose Carreras, and His Holiness The Dalai Lama, among many others. He has written music for the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona and for the 400th anniversary of the city of Mannheim, Germany.<\/p>\n
\nAs a child Sakamoto fell under the spell of English rock – the first record he ever bought: was \u201cTell Me\u201d by the Rolling Stones – and then French Impressionism. \u201cDebussy was my hero,\u201d he says, and acknowledges that echoes of his teenage idol can still be heard in his new piano disc. \u201cAsian music heavily influenced Debussy, and Debussy heavily influenced me. So the music goes around the world and comes full circle.\u201d playing the piano does indeed come full circle, offering a new, reflective take on some of Sakamoto\u2019s \u201cgreatest hits.\u201d His best-known film scores began life at the piano, so these versions are very close to the way Sakamoto himself first heard them. Songs like \u201cThousand Knives\u201d and \u201cRiot In Lagos,\u201d on the other hand, are dramatically different from their original electronic selves.<\/p>\n
\nBeing a citizen of the world means more than just hopping from studio to studio working with an international cast of musicians. Sakamoto has devoted much of his time in recent years to environmental concerns \u2013 to turning Ego into Eco, as he puts it. \u201cI felt really scared in the 90s thinking about our children\u2019s future. I imagined my youngest son at my age, and wondered what the world would be like then. That was scary!\u201d And so Sakamoto, who is somewhat reserved by nature, found a way to turn his fame into something useful. He began assembling various colleagues to work first on the Zero Landmines project; and then, faced with the enormity of the global threats to the environment, he hit upon a simple idea: moreTrees. Protecting existing forests and planting new ones could strike a natural way of balancing human carbon emissions. “A simple idea, but difficult to do!” he says ruefully. Still, within a year, his moreTrees foundation had a lease on two forests in Japan, and a third on the northern island of Hokkaido followed last year. Now, a fourth forest in the Philippines is being added. moreTrees leases the land for 50 or 60 years, planting seedlings and maintaining the forests, and offering carbon offset credits to corporations and individuals looking to reduce their carbon footprint.<\/p>\n
\nSakamoto has been constantly pushing towards sustainability, with the tour, \u201cPlaying the Piano 2009\u201d, he chose sustainable and ecologically sound ways to tour; Sakamoto used green electricity at each performance, and all carbon dioxide emitted through the tour was offset. The carbon offset is made by means of the cultivation of forests promoted by his environmental protection organization, moreTrees, founded in 2007. www.more-trees.org<\/p>\n
\nThe inspiration of nature in his music, as well as his efforts to tour in an eco-conscious manner, was honored with the Echo Award for The Most Innovative Musician and Musical Tour 2009 at the United Nations Environment Programme\u00b9s Echo Festival in conjunction with World Environment Day at the Royal Park in Brussels. Sakamoto continues to find new innovative ways of being more green through his music activity and creativity. moreTrees is clearly a long-term commitment, one that Ryuichi Sakamoto hopes to pass on to the next generation. And that is not all he’s hoping to leave behind.
\nIn 2006, at a time when the record business was hitting the steepest part of its current decline, he bucked the odds and launched an independent, eco-friendly record label called commmons (the middle m, he says, stands for music) in collaboration with Avex Entertainment. Concerned that musicians were unable to make a living from recordings and that valuable work was being lost, Sakamoto began a two-pronged recording approach. First, he began looking for interesting artists, and found a funny thing happening. \u201cAs people get older, normally their ears close to new sounds. My ears get more open as I get older. There are always young talents \u2013 artists, bands, DJs \u2013 and I hear something surprising, an unexpected sound or noise, every day.”
\nAmong the artists Sakamoto has signed to commmons are the veteran noise-rock band Boredoms, their all-female offshoot OOIOO, and the latest release from American “post-rock” pioneers Tortoise. An even bigger part of commmons, though, is the project known as Schola. Sakamoto describes it as a 30-volume musical encyclopedia. Fifteen volumes will be devoted to Western music, from medieval to modern, and the other fifteen will be devoted to non-Western traditions. By licensing some of the finest existing recordings (some of them not currently in print), and producing each volume as a book with a CD, he hopes to offer a panoramic survey of the world’s music. \u201cAgain, the main reason I started it is for the next generations. Music becomes information; it\u2019s on the internet, all flat, spread out on a huge plain. It\u2019s hard for them to pick out the good music. And I want to say, listen to this \u2013 it\u2019s worth it.\u201d
\nAnd what about the current generation? For us, there is a Ryuichi Sakamoto discography that is unparalleled in its diversity and quality; a discography with the notable addition of playing the piano and out of noise.<\/p>\n
\nFor further information please contact:<\/p>\n
\nDoreen D\u2019Agostino
\n646.829.0653
\n917.916.2626
\ndoreendagostino@earthlink.net<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
RYUICHI SAKAMOTO RELEASES SPECIAL NEW 2-CD PACKAGE September 28th, 2010 ECO-CONSCIOUS, RARE U.S.TOUR FOLLOWS IN OCTOBER Ryuichi Sakamoto\u2019s legions of fans will have a new special 2-CD package to savor on September 28th (Decca): the two albums, playing the piano and out of noise, present a wide-ranging view into the world of this composer, musician, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/doreendagostinomedia.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/doreendagostinomedia.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/doreendagostinomedia.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doreendagostinomedia.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doreendagostinomedia.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/doreendagostinomedia.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/doreendagostinomedia.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doreendagostinomedia.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doreendagostinomedia.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}