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Motoi Sakuraba Biography |
Motoi Sakuraba (1965- ) has composed music for various Japanese video games, anime series, and TV dramas as well as independent progressive rock albums.
Bio
Motoi Sakuraba was born on 5th of August in 1965, is married to Yuko Sakuraba, and has a daughter, Mio Sakuraba.
Style
Motoi Sakuraba takes the pompous and melodic Japanese progressive rock of the 1980's and expand them with his own trademark complex rhythms, emotional flutes, abuse of male choir and heavy hall. The lighter side of his style in a crossover between symphonic progressive rock, cinematic orchestra and new age. Sakuraba is considered being one of the best progressive rock keyboard players with awesome performing style (as can be witnessed on the DVD release of his Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile live concert), introducing many jazz alike improvisations to his music style. In the last couple of years he made serious efforts expanding his style even further.
Career
Sakuraba broke into the music scene as composer and keyboard player of the progressive rock band Deja Vu, which released an album, "Baroque in the Future", in 1988. The band later disbanded, and Sakuraba went on to release a solo progressive rock album, "Gikyoku Onsou", in 1990. During his work as video game composer he continued to produce heavily extended arrangements of his compositions.
Late 1989, Sakuraba began work as main composer for Wolf Team, a subsidiary of Telenet Japan. In 1994, former Wolf Team composer, director and composer Masaaki Uno, started working at Camelot Software Planning as coordinator and sound director, employing Sakuraba as composer for all Camelot games and developing games for Sony, Sega and Nintendo. In 1995, Wolf Team developed the break through game Tales of Phantasia for Namco, starting the third most successful video game series in Japan behind Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. Wolf Team continued to develop games for Namco in the Tales series while keeping Sakuraba (and the other Wolf Team composer Shinji Tamura) as composer, until it morphed into the Namco Telenet joint subsidiary Namco Tales Studio in 2003. In 1995, former Wolf Team director and producer Jun Asanuma as well as Tales of Phantasia writer and programmer Yoshiharu Gotanda founded tri-Ace with financial backing of Enix, creating the Star Ocean series and, again, employing Sakuraba for all games. In 1999, long time Sakuraba sound designer and programmer Hiroya Hatsushiba, former member of Wolf Team and tri-Ace, founded tri-Crescendo while continuing to contribute sound work to tri-Ace games. In 2001, tri-Crescendo started working on Baten Kaitos together with Monolith and with financial backing of Namco, Hatsushiba as director and main programmer and Sakuraba, again, as composer. Sakuraba is regularly contracted for composing work in other media through his own TEAM Entertainment, a company founded in 1999 to promote and license the work of artists.
During July, 2003, Sakuraba held a live concert in Tokyo, Japan. He performed progressive rock interpretations of music from the PlayStation games Star Ocean: The Second Story and Valkyrie Profile.
Works
Albums
@Midi's Summer (various)
@Midi's Dance (various)
@Midi's Battle (various)
@Midi's Freedom (various)
Vanny Knights Original Soundtrack
Genso-maden Saiyuki Original Soundtrack Volume 1
Genso-maden Saiyuki Original Soundtrack Volume 2
Star Ocean EX Original Soundtrack Volume 1
Star Ocean EX Original Soundtrack Volume 2
Tales of Phantasia Original Soundtrack Complete Version
Tales of Destiny Soundtrack
Tales of Eternia Original Sountrack
Tales of Eternia "The Animation" Original Sountrack
Tales of Eternia Remaster Audio
Tales of Symphonia Original Soundtrack
Tales of Destiny II Original Sountrack
King's Boards (various)
Arcus II Silent Symphony
Progressive Battle 1988 (Dčja Vu, live compilation)
Baroque in the Future (Dčja Vu)
Pazzo Fanfano di Musica (compilation)
Sing!! Sega Game Music (compilation)
FZ Series "AXIS"
Maneuver Cepter "GRANADA"
Zan Kagerou no Toki
Gikyoku Onsou (solo work)
Beyond the Beyond Original Game Soundtrack
Star Ocean Perfect Sound Collection
Shining the Holy Ark Original Soundtrack
Star Ocean: Second Story Arrange Album
Force of Light
Shining Force III Original Soundtrack
Valkyrie Profile Arrange Album
Valkyrie Profile Voice Mix Arrange
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Children Game Music Arrange Tracks
Star Ocean Perfect Sound Collection
Star Ocean Blue Sphere Arrange & Sound Trax
Star Ocean The Second Story Arrange Album
Star Ocean The Second Story Fantasy Megamix
Star Ocean Till the End of Time Arrange Album
Star Ocean Till the End of Time Voice Mix Arrange
Melody of Legend: Chapter of Dream (compilation)
Melody of Legend: Chapter of Love (compilation)
Motoi Sakuraba Live Concert "Star Ocean & Valkyrie Profile" (CD&DVD)
Games
For Wolf Team (subsidiary of Telenet):
Tales of Phantasia (published by Namco)
Tales of Destiny (published by Namco)
Tales of Eternia (published by Namco)
Tales of Destiny 2 (published by Namco)
Arcus Odyssey
Arcus Spirits
Arcus I-II-III
Earnest Evans
Annette Futabi
El Viento
Maneuver Cepter Granada
Goh
Zan II Spirits
Zan III Spirits
Zan: Yaksa Enbukyoku
Zan Gear
Fhey Area (Faeria)
Sol-Feace (Sol-Deace)
Devastator
Final Zone Senki: AXIS
Hiouden
Cybernetic Empire
many others
For Telenet:
Ace o Nerae!
Tenshi no Uta: Shiroki Tsubasa no Inori
Parlor Series
For Namco Tales Studio (subsidiary of Namco and Telenet):
Tales of Symphonia
For Camelot Software Planning:
Golden Sun ~Hirakereshi Fuin~ (published by Nintendo)
Golden Sun ~Lost Ages~ (published by Nintendo)
Shining the Holy Ark (published by Sega)
Shining Force III: Scenario 1 (published by Sega)
Shining Force III: Scenario 2 (published by Sega)
Shining Force III: Scenario 3 (published by Sega)
Beyond the Beyond (published by Sony)
Minna no Golf (aka Hotshot Golf, Everybody's Golf) (published by Sony)
Mario Golf N64/GB (published by Nintendo)
Mario Tennis N64/GB (published by Nintendo)
Mario Golf Toadstool Tour (published by Nintendo)
For tri-Ace:
Star Ocean: Till the End of Time (published by Enix)
Star Ocean (published by Enix)
Star Ocean: The Second Story (published by Enix)
Star Ocean: Blue Sphere (published by Enix)
Valkyrie Profile (published by Enix)
For tri-Crescendo:
Baten Kaitos (published by Namco)
Animes
Genso Maden Saiyuki
Star Ocean EX
Atashinchi
Weiß Kreuz Glühen
Boukenyuki Plaster World
Television Dramas
TV Asahi Weekend Drama Series
Cyber Bi-Shoujo Teromea
Vanny Knights
Movies
Blue Remains (CG Movie) |
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