Among the most anticipated musical events of Lucca Comics & Games 2026 is undoubtedly the arrival in Italy for the first time of Yōko Kanno, composer, arranger, performer and music producer, one of the most important figures in music for anime, video games, cinema and television.
A reference for generations of viewers and listeners, her name is inseparably linked to Cowboy Bebop, the cult anime whose identity found one of its decisive elements in music. Among the best-known and most recognizable anime theme songs at the turn of the twenty-first century is Tank!, the jazz opening composed by Kanno with her SEATBELTS, which entered the global imagination also thanks to the iconic “3, 2, 1, let’s jam”. And also Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Macross Frontier, Darker than Black and Genesis of Aquarion.
Across different genres, languages and formats, from video-game music with the Nobunaga’s Ambition series, to collaborations for cinema and institutional projects such as Ray of Water and Hana wa Saku, an anthem of rebirth after the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011.
Yoko Kanno will be in Lucca on Saturday 31 October and Sunday 1 November, where she will be celebrated and will finally meet Italian and European fans.
On 3 November there will be a truly epoch-making event: at the Teatro Nazionale in Milan, in a European premiere, the Sensei will perform Piano Me, the solo project that combines live piano and images. The event, a true one-off in the calendar of classical-music concerts for autumn 2026, is produced by Let Me See and Yellow Echos: ticket presales for the Milan concert open today: tickets
