Kumi Tanioka

Kumi Tanioka (谷岡 久美, Tanioka Kumi, born August 29, 1974) is a Japanese video game music composer and musician. She is most known for composing the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles series. Kumi Tanioka was born in Hiroshima, Japan. She studied music and composition while in school and enjoyed listening to video game music as her younger brother was a game player. 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. 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 (now Square Enix) as a composer in 1998. Her first score was the soundtrack to 1998's The Fallen Angels, which she composed...