Joe Hisaishi named LA Philharmonic composer-in-residence
Joe Hisaishi will spend five seasons creating new work and performing with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at its major venues.
Joe Hisaishi, the composer best known to many fans for his work with Studio Ghibli, has been named Composer-in-Residence for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Hollywood Bowl and The Ford venues from the 2027/28 season through 2031/32. The appointment forms part of a new five-year artistic partnership announced by the orchestra on October 22.1
The agreement will bring recurring Hisaishi performances to the Hollywood Bowl and The Ford, alongside appearances at Walt Disney Concert Hall. The LA Phil also says the partnership will include new commissions written specifically for its audiences, recording projects, and educational and community initiatives developed with the Joe Hisaishi Foundation.2
Why this matters to anime fans
Hisaishi’s connection to animation is unusually broad. He has composed the scores for 11 films directed by Hayao Miyazaki, including My Neighbour Totoro and Spirited Away, as well as music for Isao Takahata’s The Tale of the Princess Kaguya. His work on those films helped give Studio Ghibli’s emotional and visual storytelling a musical identity recognised well beyond Japan.1
The new partnership is not a promise of a new Ghibli soundtrack. The LA Phil describes it as a wider relationship spanning symphonic works, performances, recordings and outreach. Programming and individual commissions have not yet been announced, so the most immediate significance is the length of the commitment: five seasons in which Hisaishi can develop new work with one of the United States’ best-known orchestras.2
The orchestra says Hisaishi’s recurring appearances will cover the Hollywood Bowl, The Ford and Walt Disney Concert Hall. That gives the partnership a substantial public-facing footprint, rather than limiting it to a single concert or commission. It also creates room for audiences who know Hisaishi through film music and those who follow his concert work to meet in the same programme.2
Our opinion
This is meaningful news because it treats Hisaishi as a composer with a future, not merely as the soundtrack writer audiences remember from beloved films. The five-year span should give the collaboration time to produce more than a one-off celebratory concert. We will need to see the eventual commissions and programmes before judging the artistic results, but the structure is promising: new music, performances and education all sit alongside the film work that made Hisaishi a household name among anime fans.