Kumi Tanioka

Kumi Tanioka is a Japanese video game music composer and pianist. Born in Hiroshima, Japan, she graduated from Kobe University with a degree in musical performance, and began working as a video game composer in 1998. She joined video game developer and publisher Square that same year, and worked on overgames for them before leaving to work as an independent composer in 2010. She is most known for composing for the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles series, which she composed for Square Enix. Tanioka has a style of world music, whereby she combines instruments from different parts of the world into one cohesive sound. She also likes to incorporate piano music into her soundtracks, which she typically performs herself, as she has done as a part of The Star Onions, a musical group focusing on arrangements of Final Fantasy XI music made up of Square Enix composers, as well as on her own at various concerts, such as 2011s Final Fantasy XIthemed VanaCon.

Tanioka was born in Hiroshima, Japan, where she studied music and composition while in school and enjoyed listening to video game music as her younger brother was a gamer. Among the composers she grew familiar with were Square employees Hitoshi Sakimoto, Nobuo Uematsu and Kenji Ito. Her favorite classical composers at the time were Piotr Paleczny and Hiromi Uehara. Tanioka attended Kobe University, where she studied music and joined a choir. She graduated with a degree in musical performance. Although she had planned on performing music as a career, during college she became more interested in composing than performance, and in video game composition because of her childhood experiences. After graduating, she joined Square as a composer in 1998.

Source: Wikipedia