Sakamoto moved to New York in 1990 and, in 1993 he appeared in Japanese director Nagisa Oshima's film Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence alongside British rock legend David Bowie. Sakamoto also wrote the film's musical score.

His 2017 album, titled Async, paints an audio portrait of the passing of time informed by his recovery from throat cancer, which he was diagnosed in 2014.

"You have to open your ears all the time because anything can happen unexpectedly," he has said of his approach."Anything can be music."

"A wrong note could be the right way into a fresh musical idea. The sounds of a city at night might inform the architecture of a new album" he said.

Sakamoto's Feb 29 performance was part of the "Voluntary Garden Online Concert: Sonic Cure", which was launched by UCCA Center for Contemporary Art. Nine musicians of different styles, backgrounds, and generations, from multimedia artist Feng Mengbo to suona master Guo Yazhi, gave impromptu performances during the 4-hour-long concert, which attracted over three million viewers.

The concert is an extension of the UCCA exhibition, titled Voluntary Garden, which is currently closed to the public due to the ongoing epidemic. The project has a series of improvised performances made in a traditional Chinese garden, which are presented as a composite video and sound installation.

Late last year, a floating stage was built in a traditional Chinese garden nearby the Forbidden City in Beijing. Thirty-nine musicians, from different music genres and styles－including Chinese folk and classical music, jazz, rock, metal, and electronic－were invited to perform there. The entire process was filmed, recorded and has been displayed at UCCA Center for Contemporary Art since Dec 12.

Contact the writer at chennan@chinadaily.com.cn