Review: Joe Hisaishi’s Studio Ghibli Music Soars at the San Francisco Symphony

So it’s 2017, right, and I’m in a Tokyo park trying to entertain a group of small schoolchildren. They’d gathered around to stare at my tattoos (which are rare in Japan), and, in a moment of not knowing what to do, I decided to seek common ground through music.

I sung Katy Perry. No reaction. I sung Taylor Swift. Some giggles, but mostly blank stares.

Then it hit me: I’m in Japan! So I started singing the theme to My Neighbor Totoro, and instantly, a dozen young Japanese children in matching yellow caps burst into song with me, laughing and singing as we shared an odd, beautiful moment of human connection.

Multiply that by about 100 million, and you start to understand the global impact of the wonderful music of Joe Hisaishi.

Which is why it was no surprise when tickets for Hisaishi’s three concerts this week with the San Francisco Symphony sold out quickly. As a longtime collaborator of Studio Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki, Hisaishi has composed scores for such timeless films as Spirited Away, Castle in the Sky and Princess Mononoke. With the continued rise of Studio Ghibli’s profile in the United States, and the rare opportunity to see Hisaishi conduct his own music live at the podium, the auditorium was packed.

It should be said: This was the most diverse crowd I’ve ever seen at Davies Symphony Hall. Multiracial, yes — Asian, Latino, white, Indian, Black, Filipino — and dressed in athleisure and formal gowns alike, plus a kimono or two. At one point a burly mustache guy in a denim jacket over a Princess Mononoke T-shirt walked past me, followed by a shy young girl in sparkly Mary Janes and a pink tutu. (Shout out, also, to the two young men decked out as Kiki and Tombo.)

Which is to say that Hisaishi’s music has touched a very wide swath of people, evident in the huge applause that greeted his entrance Thursday night. Performing double duty on the podium and piano, he led the orchestra in themes from his first-ever Miyazaki film, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, while a montage from the movie appeared on a large screen above. So it went across 10 different films, as the orchestra and San Francisco Symphony chorus brought Hisaishi’s enduring melodies to new life.

Hisaishi is sometimes compared to Hollywood composer John Williams, and Miyazaki to Walt Disney, but neither comparison is really accurate. Just days before, I’d rewatched Spirited Away at the New Parkway Theater in Oakland, and was reminded of the counterbalancing effect of Hisaishi’s scores. During the film’s many scenes of tumult or fear, the music conveys calm beauty; an aural reassurance that amid life’s challenges, somehow, we persevere.

Vocalist Mai Fujisawa conjured that feeling during her performance of “One Summer’s Day,” from Spirited Away. (She also inspired the only three words Hisaishi spoke from the stage: “She’s my daughter.”) Meanwhile, vocalist Janet Todd’s Princess Mononoke theme soared gorgeously, offset by the film’s thundering “The Demon God,” essentially the soundtrack to walking through a brick wall. With the Symphony chorus, Ponyo was jaunty as ever.

Somehow it was Kiki’s Delivery Service that hit me the hardest, with its lilting theme, “A Town With an Ocean View.” The screen showed a familiar scene from the film: a young girl flying with her cat and a broom over her hometown, fully free, the way we all should be, except instead we’re tethered to the ground, to our jobs and our phones. (I was torn out of this reverie by a person in front of me playing with ChatGPT prompts for several minutes on her bright phone screen. Welcome to San Francisco.)

On the whole, the crowd remained incredibly polite, even during the rapturous “Hey Let’s Go” from the concert’s inevitable closer, My Neighbor Totoro. Several minutes of a standing ovation brought Hisaishi out for an encore of Porco Rosso‘s “Madness.” More ovations brought him out for another encore, of Princess Mononoke‘s “Ashitaka and San.”

I lost track of how many curtain calls followed. All I know is Hisaishi was showered with love from a small cross-section of his many admirers, just like those schoolkids in Tokyo, who’ve been touched by his music — and were fortunate enough to thank him for it in person.