Jun Miyake

Lore & Background

Jun Miyake was discovered by Japanese jazz trumpeter Terumasa Hino. He studied at Berklee College of Music from 1976 to 1981. After returning to Tokyo, he became a working musician, composer, and producer, releasing his first album 'June Night Love' in 1983, which included tracks used in a TDK TV commercial starring Andy Warhol. He would work on over 3,000 TV commercials, winning awards including the Cannes advertisement film festival and the Digital Media Grands prix.

Miyake worked closely with Pina Bausch for pieces including Rough Cut (2005), Vollmond (2006), Sweet Mambo (2008), and Como El Musguito En La Piedra, Ay Si Si... (2009), which led to the film Pina by Wim Wenders; his tracks were featured in the essential scenes. The film was awarded the European Film Award for Best Documentary in 2011 and nominated for an Academy Award and a BAFTA.

Reader's Guide

Jun Miyake's significance lies in his versatile career as a composer for film, dance, theater, and advertising, bridging Japanese and international artistic circles. His work with Pina Bausch and Wim Wenders on the film Pina brought his music to a global audience, with the film earning major award nominations. Miyake's three consecutive albums winning the German critic's award, Der Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik, as Best Album of the Year—Stolen from Strangers, Lost Memory Theatre act-1, and Lost Memory Theatre act-2—underscore his critical acclaim in the music industry. His extensive discography of 17 solo albums and collaborations with prominent artists across genres demonstrate his adaptability and influence. Miyake's legacy includes his role in modern dance theater, his contributions to over 3,000 TV commercials, and his arrangement of the Japanese national anthem for the 2016 Olympics, marking his impact on both popular and high culture.

Did You Know?

• Jun Miyake was discovered by Japanese jazz trumpeter Terumasa Hino.
• He studied at Berklee College of Music from 1976 to 1981 and won the Massachusetts Artist Foundation award in 1981.
• His music was used in the film Pina, which was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature in January 2012.
• He arranged the Japanese national anthem Kimigayo for the 2016 Summer Olympics closing ceremony.

From Kyoto to Berklee: Building a Musical Identity

Born in Kyoto on January 7, 1958, Jun Miyake first found his musical footing through the guidance of celebrated Japanese jazz trumpeter Terumasa Hino, who recognized the young player's potential. That early mentorship set Miyake on a path that led him to Boston, where he spent five years at Berklee College of Music between 1976 and 1981. His compositional talent earned him the Massachusetts Artist Foundation prize in 1981, a validation that would follow him back to Tokyo.

There, Miyake reinvented himself as a working musician, composer, and producer whose versatility became his signature. His 1983 debut album, June Night Love, already hinted at his range, with two tracks landing in a TDK television spot starring Andy Warhol. That commercial work would snowball: over the decades he contributed music to more than three thousand TV spots, collecting honors at the Cannes advertisement film festival and the Digital Media Grands prix. His instrumental palette—trumpet, flugelhorn, melodica, piano, Fender Rhodes, and electronic programming—gave him a sonic fingerprint that refused to be pinned to a single genre.

Dance, Film, and the Pina Bausch Legacy

The most celebrated chapter of Miyake's career unfolded in the rehearsal rooms of Pina Bausch's dance theater. Beginning with Rough Cut in 2005 and continuing through Vollmond, Sweet Mambo, and Como El Musguito En La Piedra, Ay Si Si... in 2009, he composed scores that became inseparable from the choreography itself. That sustained partnership ultimately drew director Wim Wenders into the fold, resulting in the 2011 documentary Pina, in which Miyake's tracks—including "Lilies in the Valley" and "The Here and After"—underscore the film's most essential scenes.

The critical reception was extraordinary. Pina took the European Film Award for Best Documentary in 2011, earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature in January 2012, and received a BAFTA nomination for Best Non-English Language Film the same year. For a composer whose earlier output had been scattered across commercials and niche albums, the Bausch collaboration crystallized his reputation as a writer whose music could carry the emotional weight of a full theatrical narrative.

A Web of International Collaboration

Few composers in the Japanese scene have woven as dense a network of cross-border partnerships as Miyake. He scored Robert Wilson's 2002 production White Town, an homage to architect Arne Jacobsen staged at Bellevue Teatret in Copenhagen, and contributed to projects with Jean-Paul Goude, Oliver Stone, and Philippe Decouflé. Goude also designed the artwork for three of Miyake's most acclaimed solo records—Stolen from Strangers and both acts of Lost Memory Theatre—each of which swept the German Der Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik as Best Album of the Year.

His roster of musical collaborators reads like a who's-who of global avant-garde and jazz: David Byrne, Grace Jones, Nina Hagen, Ron Carter, Michael Brecker, Al Foster, Arto Lindsay, Hal Willner, Dhafer Youssef, Jean-Michel Jarre, and many others. In 1995 he brought a blend of jazz and funk to Katsuhiro Otomo's "Stink Bomb" episode of the anime Memories, matching the segment's chaotic comedy. By 2009, Parisian fashion house Galeries Lafayette Homme had named him "Man of 2009," a recognition that his influence stretched well beyond the concert hall.

Restless Geography: Paris, Tokyo, and Beyond

Since 2005, Miyake has made Paris his creative home, a base from which he has juggled an extraordinary volume of film and stage work. His recent filmography includes scores for The Translators, Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer, An Artist of the Floating World, No Longer Human, No.9, Sanson, and Snow Country—evidence of a composer in sustained demand across international cinema. In 2021 he released Whispered Garden, his seventeenth solo album, and in 2025 he is set to issue Siddhartha.

One of his most publicly visible moments came in 2016, when he arranged the Japanese national anthem Kimigayo for the Summer Olympics closing ceremony and composed the track "ANTHEM OUTRO" for the "ARIGATO FROM JAPAN" sequence, a contribution that sparked widespread conversation. The pandemic briefly pulled him back to Tokyo, but in 2024 he announced a new chapter: relocating his base to New York. For a man who has already called Kyoto, Boston, Tokyo, and Paris home, the move to Manhattan feels less like a departure and more like the next note in a long, evolving composition.