Five Composers You Should Know
2009 November 11
Courtesy of Chris Rickwood comes these composers:
- Nadia Boulanger: Composer most well know for the students she taught and mentored.
- Edgar Varese: The “Father of Electronic Music”
- John Chowning: discovered FM synthesis which became the first real voice for the PC through the AdLib and Soundblaster cards.
- Tetsuya Mizuguchi: Game designer that pushed the use of music as a game mechanic. Creator of Rez.
For good measure, I am adding my favorite:
- Bobby Prince: Creator of the excellent soundtracks to Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake.
I’d like to add my favorite to the list…
Peter McConnell: Composer of numberous games, most recently Brutal Legend, and a founding member of the Game Audio Network Guild.
My favorite: Alexander Brandon from his works on Jazz jackrabbit, Unreal, Unreal Tournament, and Deus Ex
I don’t think Mizuguchi-san is a composer. Did you mean Masaya Matsuura, who is a composer and created PaRappa?
Actually, Trent Reznor did the soundtrack to Quake. Bobby Prince is still awesome though.
Bobby Prince didn’t do the music and sound for Quake, Trent Reznor did. And the Doom soundtrack was mostly popular heavy metal songs transcribed to MIDI.
My Japanese Gaming background has basically molded my favorite composer list into an all-Japanese one, but for good measure.
1) Yasunori Mitsuda: Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Xenogears. If you ever have the time to listen to Crono’s main theme in Chrono Trigger, “Scars of Time” in Chrono Cross, and “Awakening” in Xenogears, you can understand why so many people hold reverence for him.
2) Nobuo Uematsu: A man who needs no introduction. His work is found on the front page of Japanese music textbooks, and he composed the music for the Final Fantasy series. He was one of the first Japanese composers to have his music remixed for live orchestra performances in Japan.
3) Hitoshi Sakamoto: Not exactly the most well-known composer, but he has been with the industry since the late 1980’s. He gave a keynote at this year’s GDC, and I was privileged enough to meet him and get his autograph for my Final Fantasy Tactics soundtrack. His most well known works include FFT, Vagrant Story, and most recently the soundtrack for Valkyria Chronicles.
4) Koji Kondo: Super Mario Bros., Legend of Zelda, and all sequels to the games.
5) Masoto Nakamura: Composed the first two Sonic the Hedgehog games. Jun Senoue took over for him in Sonic 3, and has made all the music for the series since, but Nakamura’s music will always hold a special place in people’s hearts.
Koichi Sugayama: I have a hard time putting him down, because although he does great work for the Dragon Quest series, he’s a right-wing activist (and denies the Japanese Empire, Comfort Women, and the Nanking Massacre; shame…)
I can’t believe you listed Bobby Prince, who basically stole a lot of the music in Doom from proper metal bands like Pantera, Slayer, and Metallica.