Hikari Ōe

Who is Hikari Ōe?

Hikari Ōe is a Japanese composer who has autism. He is the son of Japanese author Kenzaburō Ōe and Yukari Ikeuchi, the younger sister of director Juzo Itami.

Hikari Ōe was born developmentally disabled. Doctors tried to convince his parents to let their son die, but they refused to do so. Even after an operation, Ōe remained visually impaired, developmentally delayed, epileptic and with limited physical coordination. He does not speak much.

Ōe's parents report that his first "word" was spoken when he was walking with his parents near his house and heard a bird calling. He imitated the voice of a man who presented a record of birds calling in one of his child CDs. His parents were fascinated. They bought him tracks of bird calls, which he learned. This was how they got the idea to recruit a music teacher for Ōe. His parents arranged a piano teacher, Kumiko Tamura, for him. Instead of speaking, Ōe began to express his feelings in music and through musical composition. Eventually he was taught musical notation.

As an adult, Hikari creates chamber music. Hikari's first CD sold more than one million copies in the first few years of release.