What was the difficult part of creating the new arrangement for “Castle in the Sky”?
• The original is about 60 minutes long in total. This time it will be more than 90 minutes. The amount of music increased dramatically, which means there was a lot of new material I had to write. But my musical style 13 years ago was totally different from what it is today. And in some cases, the way that I write music has changed. If I just added new material in places that needed additional music, balance-wise it would turn out terrible. So there was nothing I could do but rewrite the entire piece. That was the hardest part. Another thing is that the original melodies are very well known in Japan. So it was really hard writing a new version while still maintaining the original’s integrity. 2. You said that you had a new style, a new way of working that you didn’t have the first time. I wanted to ask you how it’s different, and what’s your style now? • My music has gotten much better. And technique. I have really developed technically. That’s why when I looked at these old scores, I
