Yoko Kanno

Infobox musical artist

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Name = Yoko Kanno
Sex = female
Background = non_performing_personnel
Birth_name =
Alias =
Born = birth date and age|1964|3|19 flagicon|JPN Miyagi, Japan
Died =
Origin =
Instrument = Keyboard, piano, accordion
Genre = Jazz Classical Orchestral Electronic New Age Blues Folk rock Electro Rock J-Pop Art rock
Occupation = Composer, musician, conductor
Years_active = 1986–"present"
Label =
Associated_acts = TETSU100%, The Seatbelts, Samply Red, ORIGA
URL =
Notable_instruments =

nihongo|Yoko Kanno|菅野 よう子|Kanno Yōko|born March 19, 1964 in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan is a composer, arranger and musician best known for her work on the soundtracks for many games, seminal anime films, TV series, live-action movies, and advertisements. She has written scores for famous animated works, including "Macross Plus", "Turn A Gundam", "Cowboy Bebop", "Vision of Escaflowne", "", "Wolf's Rain", and is the most trusted composer by veteran and new-wave directors such as Yoshiyuki Tomino, Shinichiro Watanabe and Shoji Kawamori. [ [http://www.productionig.com/contents/works_sp/47_/s08_/index.html Production IG Interview with Yoko Kanno for Ghost in the Shell: SAC] ] Kanno has also composed music for JPop artists, the most notable being Maaya Sakamoto and Kyoko Koizumi. She is also a skilled keyboardist, and is the frontwoman for The Seatbelts, who perform many of Kanno's compositions on the various original soundtracks for which she is responsible.

Biography

Some of Yoko Kanno's most famous soundtrack themes include "Kiseki no Umi" ("Lodoss War"), "Voices" ("Macross Plus"), "Tank!" ("Cowboy Bebop"), "Yakusoku wa Iranai" ("Escaflowne"), "Gravity" ("Wolf's Rain"), "Inner Universe" (') and ' . She was the lead member of the project band called "The Seatbelts", which regrouped in the year of 2004 to compose the soundtrack of the PlayStation 2 "Cowboy Bebop" video game, released in Japan in 2005.

She has composed for many Koei games released during the late 1980s to early 1990s and for Napple Tale, a Dreamcast game. Due to her close involvement in the "Cowboy Bebop" anime, the game released by Bandai also features her work.

Apart from anime and games, Kanno also composes for live-action films and television commercials. Some popular brands she has composed for are Canon, DoCoMo, Fuji Xerox, Seven-Eleven, Microsoft, Nissan, Toyota, Shiseido, Avon, and Master Card to name a few. Grand Funk Inc. is her recording studio of choice in producing for these two media. Contributions to films started in the 90s but only since 2002 has there been a trend towards the medium. Most of the latter were shown in international film festivals.

She was married to fellow composer Hajime Mizoguchi, with whom she collaborated on the soundtracks for "Please Save My Earth" and "Escaflowne". They divorced in 2007.

In addition to Japanese, she speaks very little English and some French, but claims that her English is "poor" and she needs translation help to converse in French. [http://www.ex.org/4.5/16-interview_kanno1.html]

She has attended Otakon and Anime Expo in 1999, as well as Anime Expo New York in 2002.

Gabriela Robin, an enigmatic vocalist who has only ever worked with Kanno and her ex-husband Mizoguchi Hajime, is rumored to be a pseudonym of Kanno herself.

Discography

olo Studio Albums

Movie works

Works for Pop Albums

(In Order of Starting Year of Affiliation)

References

External links

* [http://www.kannoyoko.net/ Yoko Kanno Japanese site]
*ann name|id=734|name=Yoko Kanno
* [http://www.ex.org/4.5/16-interview_kanno1.html Voices: An EX.org Exclusive Interview with Yoko Kanno]
* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0437819/ Yōko Kanno] at the Internet Movie Database
* [http://nippop.com/artist/artist_id-133/artist_name-yoko_kanno/ Nippop Profile |Yoko Kanno]
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* [http://www.jmusic.fr.tc/ Jmusic.fr.tc] biography and discography fr icon
* [http://www.jameswong.com/ykproject/core.html Yoko Kanno Project]