With this piece, I wanted to pay homage to a composer who has influenced me in a huge way since my childhood, Joe Hisaishi. Mamoru Fujisawa, better known as Joe Hisaishi, is a Japanese film composer born in 1950 who has over 100 film scores and solo albums to his name. Dubbed “the John Williams of Japan” by Pitchfork in 2017, he has won the Japanese Academy Award for Best Music seven times. He is best known as the main musical associate of the Studio Ghibli film studio, having scored all but one of Hayao Miyazaki’s animated films.
 
With this piece, I wanted to use his colors and his palette to paint a picture of intensity, beauty and adventure. The name of the piece is also another homage to one of his works, Dragonboy. Using his palette, I illustrate the journey of a dragonfly. From the beginning of the piece, it is an explosion of color and energy- representing the world of the dragonfly- and from there it is a journey of flight and peril for the small creature of the sky.