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Oscar-winning musician & YMO co-founder Sakamoto Ryuichi dies

World-renowned Japanese musician and composer Sakamoto Ryuichi, a founding member of a trailblazing electronic music band, has died. He was 71.

Sakamoto started playing the piano and studying composition when he was a child. He finished his master's course at the Graduate School of what is now Tokyo University of the Arts.

Sakamoto co-founded the band Yellow Magic Orchestra, known as YMO, with Hosono Haruomi and Takahashi Yukihiro in 1978. The group pioneered the use of computers and electronic instruments, such as synthesizers, establishing the genre called techno-pop.

Sakamoto won much-coveted honors, including an Oscar and a Grammy, for scoring the film "The Last Emperor."

Sakamoto was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014. He resumed his musical activities after undergoing treatment. But he disclosed his rectal cancer diagnosis in 2021.

His management agency says Sakamoto died on Tuesday.

The company, along with two other entities, issued a statement online saying, "While undergoing treatment for cancer discovered in June 2020, Sakamoto continued to create works in his home studio whenever his health would allow."

The statement adds that Sakamoto "lived with music until the very end."

Source: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20230403_02/