Joe Hisaishi (久石 譲, Hisaishi Jō) is a Japanese composer, musical director, conductor, and pianist, born December 6, 1950, in Nagano. He started his career as a composer of contemporary classical music when he was still a student at the Kunitachi College of Music. At that time, he was into minimalist music. His stage name Hisaishi Joe (family name first) came from Quincy Jones. The kanji for "Hisaishi" could be read as "Kuishi", which is close to the Japanese pronunciation of "Quincy", and "Joe" of course came from "Jones". Hisaishi himself chose this name when he needed a stage name.