Profile of Motoi Sakuraba on Famous Like Me

Motoi Sakuraba (桜庭 統 Sakuraba Motoi, born August 5, 1965) has composed music for various Japanese video games, anime series, and TV dramas as well as independent progressive rock albums.

Biography

Motoi Sakuraba was born in Akita Prefecture, Japan. He is married to Yuko Sakuraba and has a daughter, Mio Sakuraba.

Musical Style

Motoi Sakuraba takes the baroque and melodic Japanese progressive rock of the 1980s and expands it with his own trademark complex rhythms, emotional flutes, use of male choir and heavy hall. The lighter side of his style is a crossover between symphonic progressive rock, cinematic orchestra and new age. Sakuraba is considered to be one of the best progressive rock keyboard players with an awesome performing style (as can be witnessed on the DVD release of his Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile live concert), introducing many jazz-like improvisations to his music style. In recent years he has made a serious effort toward expanding his style even further.

Career

Sakuraba broke into the music scene as composer and keyboard player of the progressive rock band Deja Vu (rock), 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 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 breakthrough 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 as composer 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 Productions and with the 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 (Dèja Vu, live compilation)
• Baroque in the Future (Dèja 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 (published by Sammy)
• Arcus I-II-III
• Arcus 2: Silent Symphony
• Arcus 3
• Earnest Evans
• Anet Futatabi
• El Viento
• Maneuver Cepter Granada
• Goh
• Goh 2
• Zan II Spirits
• Zan III Spirits
• Zan: Yaksa Enbukyoku
• Zan: Kagerou no Toki
• Zan: Youen no Jidai (published by Taito)
• Zan Gear
• Fhey Area: Century of the Gods
• Sol-Feace (Sol-Deace)
• Devastator
• Final Zone Senki: AXIS
• Hiouden 1 & 2
• Hiouden: Maou Tachi to no Chikai
• Cybernetic Empire
• D - European Mirage
• Niko²

For Telenet:

• Ace o Nerae!
• Tenshi no Uta: Shiroki Tsubasa no Inori
• Parlor Parlor Series

For Namco Tales Studio (subsidiary of Namco and Telenet):

• Tales of Symphonia

For Camelot Software Planning:

• Golden Sun (published by Nintendo)
• Golden Sun: The Lost Age (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)
• Mario Golf Advance Tour (published by Nintendo)
• Mario Power Tennis

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 Pluster World

Television Dramas

• TV Asahi Weekend Drama Series
• Cyber Bi-Shoujo Teromea
• Vanny Knights

Movies

• Blue Remains (CG Movie)

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Motoi Sakuraba