Conductor Joe Hisaishi will be returning to the Philadelphia Orchestra this fall (Credit: JoeHisaishi_Composer on Instagram)
Following three sold-out concerts earlier this summer, acclaimed Japanese composer and conductor Joe Hisaishi will return to the City of Brotherly Love in November for two performances with The Philadelphia Orchestra.
The concerts, scheduled for November 13 and 14 at Marian Anderson Hall in the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, will feature selections from Hisaishi’s celebrated Studio Ghibli film scores, including Howl’s Moving Castle and Castle in the Sky, alongside his symphonic work DA-MA-SHI-E.
The program will also include Britten’s Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell.
Hisaishi, widely recognized as one of the most influential contemporary composers, is best known for his decades-long collaboration with filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, creating iconic scores for Studio Ghibli films such as My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away.
With more than 100 film scores and nearly 40 solo albums, he has built a reputation as both a composer and conductor in high demand around the world.
The New York Times has compared his partnership with Miyazaki to some of cinema’s most enduring composer-director collaborations, placing it “in the hall of fame” alongside those of John Williams and Steven Spielberg.
The announcement comes after a busy year for Hisaishi, who recently concluded his long-running world tour, Joe Hisaishi Symphonic Concert: The Music from Studio Ghibli Films of Hayao Miyazaki, with three sold-out performances at Tokyo Dome that drew a combined audience of 130,000.
Earlier this month, he released a new Deutsche Grammophon recording of his work The End of the World, paired with Steve Reich’s The Desert Music, performed by Future Orchestra Classics in Tokyo.
Hisaishi has also earned international recognition for his contemporary symphonic works, including Symphony No. 1: The East Land Symphony (2016), Symphony No. 2 (2021), and Viola Saga for Orchestra (2023).
He currently serves as composer-in-association with the Royal Philharmonic and, as of April 2025, is the music director of the Japan Century Symphony Orchestra.
Tickets for the Philadelphia performances will go on sale to the public this Friday, August 22 at philorch.org.
