Jump to content

Hitoshi Sakimoto

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by ATDC Raigeki (talk | contribs) at 17:43, 11 October 2009 (Adding an interwiki to the Portuguese version of this article). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Hitoshi Sakimoto

Hitoshi Sakimoto (崎元 仁, Sakimoto Hitoshi; born February 26, 1969) is a Japanese video game composer and musician. He is perhaps best known for scoring the games in the Final Fantasy subseries Ivalice Alliance and Vagrant Story. His musical interest came about in elementary school when he learned how to play the piano and electronic organ and joined bands.

Sakimoto's professional career began in 1988 when he started composing music as a freelancer. He became acquainted with fellow composer Masaharu Iwata and director Yasumi Matsuno, both of whom he has worked on numerous projects with. He joined Square in 1998 and worked for them for two years before resigning. In 2006, he returned to the company to compose the highly successful Final Fantasy XII. Sakimoto has also worked on non-game projects, like anime and vocal albums.

In 2002, he founded Basiscape, a video game music company comprising numerous composers and musicians. Currently the largest independent music production company, Basiscape also creates music for other types of media. Sakimoto has attended several video game concerts that have performed his pieces; in 2007, he collaborated with Yasunori Mitsuda and the Eminence Symphony Orchestra to create a concert called "Destiny: Reunion".

Biography

Early life

Hitoshi Sakimoto was born in Tokyo, Japan. He began developing an interest in music during his years at elementary school when he taught himself to play the piano and electronic organ and participated in some brass and rock bands.[1] A fan of video games, he began creating his own games in junior high school with some friends.[2] While in his senior high school years, Sakimoto wrote for the computer magazine Oh!FM and compiled data about certain pieces of music.[1] He listened to the works of Yuzo Koshiro and Miki Higashino before starting to compose music for famous Japanese gaming companies as a freelancer.[2]

Career

His debut as a gaming composer came in 1988, when he and his friend Masaharu Iwata, whom he has worked with on numerous later titles, scored the shooter game Revolter, published by ASCGroup for the NEC PC-8801. Sakimoto also created the synthesizer driver "Terpsichorean" to enhance the sound quality of the game's music; the synthesizer driver has been implemented into many games throughout the Japanese game market in the early 1990s. Despite Revolter's success, he began to underestimate his talent and decided to become a video game programmer instead; however, his friends and colleagues encouraged him to continue composing game music. The recognition he gained within the gaming industry led to several game designers and companies recruiting Sakimoto to compose music for their projects.[1] He also created sound effects and worked on arrangement and sound driver programming for several titles.[3]

Sakimoto's first encounter with mainstream success in Japan came about in 1993 when he composed Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen. The game was directed by Yasumi Matsuno, and since the release of the title, he has chosen Sakimoto as a regular for his development team at Quest and later Square. In 1998, Sakimoto joined Square and composed the score for Final Fantasy Tactics, which made him internationally famous. After completing his work on the successful Vagrant Story in 2000, he resigned from Square and became a freelance musician again. Square Enix offered Sakimoto another job to compose the score for the highly anticipated Final Fantasy XII.[1] While composing this game, Sakimoto experienced difficulty following in former regular Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu's footsteps, but he eventually decided to create a unique soundtrack with his own style.[4]

Sakimoto has since been composing regularly for a variety of games and undertaking commissions for various independent companies; he has also been involved in non-gaming projects during his career.[1] He contributed one track each to the albums Ten Plants (1998) and 2197 (1999), which feature music from various well-known artists.[5][6] Sakimoto collaborated with singer Lia in 2005 to create the music for the album Colors of Life.[1] He composed the music for two anime series; Romeo x Juliet (2007) and The Tower of Druaga: The Aegis of Uruk (2008); as well as the original video animation (OVA) Legend of Phoenix ~Layla Hamilton Monogatari~ in 2005.[7]

Basiscape

On October 4, 2002, after two years of planning, Sakimoto founded the independent music company Basiscape. The company composes and produces music and sound effects for various types of interactive media, most notably video games. Originally, it comprised only three members (Sakimoto, Iwata, and Manabu Namiki), but Mitsuhiro Kaneda and Kimihiro Abe joined in 2005. After the huge success of Final Fantasy XII, demand for Sakimoto's compositions grew stronger with gaming companies, and he decided to expand Basiscape by hiring Noriyuki Kamikura, Yoshimi Kudo, Azusa Chiba, Miki Ito, and Masaaki Kaneko.[8][9] It is currently the largest independent video game music production company.[1]

Concerts

Sakimoto has made numerous appearances at video game concerts that have performed his compositions. On July 12, 2006, he, along with Yoko Shimomura and Michael Salvatori, were special guests at a Play! A Video Game Symphony event at the Orchestra Hall in Detroit, Michigan.[10] He has developed a strong relationship with the Australian-based Eminence Symphony Orchestra, and has attended several of their concerts.[11] Sakimoto and Yasunori Mitsuda made a guest appearance at their "Passion" event in December 2006. In April 2007, he appeared at Eminence's "A Night in Fantasia 2007: Symphonic Games Edition", which featured three of his compositions.[12] Sakimoto and Mitsuda collaborated with Eminence in July the same year to create "Destiny: Reunion", a concert held exclusively in Japan.[13] Eminence released Passion (2006) and Destiny: Dreamer's Alliance (2007), two studio recorded albums that feature various compositions from the Passion and Destiny: Reunion concerts respectively.[14]

Musical style and influences

The style of Sakimoto's compositions is mostly orchestral; he creates the orchestral sound by playing the music through a sequencer instead of using a real orchestra due to the high cost.[4] He has stated that his biggest musical influence is the Japanese electropop group Yellow Magic Orchestra. When he was starting out in the field of music, he went under the pseudonym "YmoH.S", a reference to Yellow Magic Orchestra. He also cites the American jazz musician Chick Corea as a major influence.[15] Sakimoto enjoys listening to techno and jazz fusion in his spare time. While creating the music for Final Fantasy XII, his biggest musical inspiration was former regular series composer Nobuo Uematsu.[16] Sakimoto has stated that when composing Valkyria Chronicles, he aimed to give the soundtrack a greater Western appeal, influenced by Hans Zimmer's action film scores.[1]

Discography

Video game soundtracks

Other works

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Chris. "Hitoshi Sakimoto :: Biography". Square Enix Music Online. Retrieved 2008-12-05.
  2. ^ a b "Profile". CocoeBiz. Retrieved 2008-12-05.
  3. ^ "Discography". CocoeBiz. Retrieved 2008-12-05.
  4. ^ a b Kennedy, Sam; Parish, Jeremy (2007-10-30). "Final Fantasy XII Composer Hitoshi Sakimoto Interview". 1UP.com. Retrieved 2008-12-05.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. ^ "Ten Plants". Chadah's Corner. Retrieved 2008-12-06.
  6. ^ "2197". Chadah's Corner. Retrieved 2008-12-06.
  7. ^ "Credits". Hitoshi Sakimoto's official website. Retrieved 2008-12-06.
  8. ^ "Basiscape". Square Enix Music Online. Retrieved 2008-12-06.
  9. ^ "Basiscape :: Composers". Square Enix Music Online. Retrieved 2008-12-06.
  10. ^ "Hitoshi Sakimoto to attend Detroit concert". PLAY! A Video Game Symphony. 2006-05-23. Retrieved 2008-12-06.
  11. ^ Shea, Cam (2007-02-15). "Hitoshi Sakimoto AU Interview". IGN. Retrieved 2008-12-06.
  12. ^ "Company.History". Eminence Symphony Orchestra. Retrieved 2008-12-06.
  13. ^ Kermarrec, Jérémie; Jeriaska (2008-10-15). "Interview with Yasunori Mitsuda". RPGFan. Retrieved 2008-12-06.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  14. ^ "Our.Albums". Eminence Symphony Orchestra. Retrieved 2008-12-06.
  15. ^ "Hitoshi Sakimoto". Square Enix Music Online. Retrieved 2008-12-05.
  16. ^ IGN Music (2006-10-25). "Twelve Days of Final Fantasy XII: Hitoshi Sakimoto Interview Part II". IGN. Retrieved 2008-12-05.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hitoshi_Sakimoto&oldid=319264935"