Mai Fujisawa is a Japanese singer and lyricist born in Tokyo. She made her debut on screen at the age of four, singing “Nausicäa Requiem” from her father Joe Hisaishi’s soundtrack to Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Studio Ghibli’s earliest film. Like her father, Fujisawa’s mother is also an alumna of Kunitachi College of Music.
Actively collaborating with Swedish and Norwegian music composers, she recorded her first album Mai in Sweden and the Czech Republic. In 2012, she sang the opening theme of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows–Part II, with music by Alexandre Desplat. In the same year, she joined the United Nations Singers as a guest singer for its Japan tour. In 2016, she sang and wrote lyrics for the theme song for an American documentary film about World War II called Paper Lanterns, with music by young American composer Chad Cannon.
Fujisawa also sang the main theme for Clouds Above the Hill, a long-running historical drama series on NHK TV about the Meiji Revolution, based on the original story by Ryotaro Shiba. Additionally, she wrote and sang the ending theme song for Ojarumaru, an anime TV show commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, which was overwhelmingly popular among children in Japan.
In recent years, she has been contributing to the revitalization of rural towns by bridging provincial cities through the power of music. Activities include being a goodwill ambassador for Nakano City of Nagano Prefecture, where she has produced, written, and performed theme songs for Nakano City and Tochigi City in Tochigi Prefecture. She had her first Australian tour “Melody of Japan” in November 2019, at Melbourne Recital Center, Robert Blackwood Hall, Melbourne, and the State Theatre, Sydney and released her own album, Beautiful Harmony, in April 2021 from Nippon Columbia.