PHILADELPHIA — Joe Hisaishi’s first appearance with the Philadelphia Orchestra was so successful that the orchestra has made a place for him: composer-in-residence.

The popular scoresmith for movies like "Spirited Away" and "My Neighbor Totoro" will take the title immediately and hold it through the end of the 2026-27 season, the orchestra announced Thursday.

Hisaishi, 74, made his first appearances with the orchestra in June, and the relationship developed “organically” from there, said Jeremy Rothman, chief programming officer of Philadelphia Orchestra and Ensemble Arts.

“He’s such a generous musical spirit, and you saw the audiences and enthusiasm and the broad reach and appeal he has with the public,” Rothman said. “As we talked about additional projects that we could be doing together — from recordings to world premieres — it seemed like a very natural progression to put this extra feature on the relationship.”

Hisaishi will not only lead concerts of his own work but also curate programs featuring other contemporary composers and mentor composition students. Unlike the orchestra’s live-to-screen presentations, no film clips will accompany any of these performances.

Hisaishi’s style encompasses a broad range, and his Philadelphia concerts have been a mixture of suites from his film scores and concert hall works. He has scored more than 100 films, but is best known for his work with animator Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli.

Much of Hisaishi’s film music has a sweetness, earnestness or soaring quality that, for many, taps directly into childhood memories.

“He draws so much from the 20th century, minimalist and jazz genres and incorporates a unique voice,” said Rothman. “I think the audience is very drawn to his sound world, the rhythm, the propulsiveness of it. Of course that sound is very familiar to his films, but his music has an immediacy to it that audiences that may not know a whole lot about symphonic music can find very approachable and engaging right from the start.”

His next concerts with the orchestra, slated for November, feature excerpts from the scores to "Howl’s Moving Castle" and "Castle in the Sky"; his M.C. Escher-inspired "DA-MA-SHI-E"; and Britten’s "Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell."

Rothman said that Hisashi will be “among that pantheon of composers that we will look back on many years from now as an important relationship this orchestra built and maintained.”

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