Hiroki Kikuta
Hiroki Kikuta (菊田 裕樹, Kikuta Hiroki; born August 29, 1962 as Yūki Kikuta) is a Japanese composer and game designer. His major works are Secret of Mana, Trials of Mana, Soukaigi, and Koudelka, for which he also acted as producer and concept designer. He has composed music for seven other games, and worked as a concept designer in addition to composer for the unreleased MMORPG Chou Bukyo Taisen. He became interested in music at an early age, but earned a degree in Religious Studies, Philosophy, and Cultural Anthropology from Kansai University. He spent the next few years working first as a manga illustrator, then as a composer for anime series, before coming to work for Square in 1991.
After composing the soundtracks for his first three best-known works, he formed his own video game production company, Sacnoth, for which he was the president and CEO. After producing and composing Koudelka in 1999, he left to become a freelance composer. Since his departure he has formed his own record label, Norstrilia, through which he produces albums of his own compositions and collaborations with other artists, as well as his previous scores. His music has been performed in concerts such as the Symphonic Fantasies concerts in Cologne, Germany in September 2009, and selections of his works have been published as piano arrangements in sheet music books.
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