"Songs unite people of the world"!
The Symposium Executive Committee invited Ryuichi Sakamoto, internationally known for musical activities with his band YMO and his score for the film "The Last Emperor," to compose a theme song for the Kyoto Symposium. A piece enjoyable for all and allowing 150,000 "choral people of Japan" to greet Symposium participants coming from all over the world... Sakamoto gladly agreed.
The theme song will be sung at every occasion throughout the Symposium, starting with the opening gala concert. The theme song has been arranged for and will be sung in various voicings and orchestrations - there will be an a cappella version, an arrangement for choir and organ, and a version for solo voice.
The text for this song, also the theme for the 7th Symposium, is: "Cantus populi, cantus mundi. Cantus omnibus unus." (Songs of the people, songs of the world. One song unto all.) Thus, a "song" uniting the people of the world is about to be born.
Ryuichi Sakamoto: Born in Tokyo January 17, 1952. A graduate of the Music Composition Faculty of Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music and of the Acoustics Study Faculty of its graduate school. In 1978, he formed the Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) with Yukihiro Takahashi and Haruomi Hosono. The trio led the global movement of techno-pop. It disbanded in 1983. The same year, he starred in the film "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence," composing the film score, from there gaining a reputation as an excellent film composer. In 1987, for the film score for "The Last Emperor," in which he also appeared, he received many prizes including an Academy Award for Best Original Score and a Grammy Award for Best Score. He has also collaborated with world famous artists crossing over musical genres. He has released a great number of CDs, his most recent album being "Chasm" released in February 2004. His choral compositions include an opera entitled "Life" (1999) and a chorale entitled "Novel" (text: Ryu Murakami/ 1982).