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Keiji Kawamori
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General Interests: |
Rock Music, Guitars, Arranging |
| Instruments Played: |
Piano, Bass Guitar, Guitar |
| Place of Residence: |
Tokyo |
| Joined Square: |
1998 |
| Official Web Site: |
Profile at Square Enix American Web Site |
Biography
This biography was written by Chris exclusively for use at Square Enix Music Online. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed publicly without advance written permission, as this is a violation of copyright.
Having presumably joined Square around 1998, Keiji Kawamori quickly became a popular and prominent member of their team. As a rock music fan, he endeared himself to Tsuyoshi Sekito, Kenichiro Fukui, and fellow newcomer Takeharu Ishimoto straightaway. These people, together with Nobuo Uematsu, are whom Kawamori is best known alongside. He was given a major role soon after joining as the synthesizer operator for Final Fantasy VIII. As well as bonding him closely to Nobuo Uematsu, he also managed to significantly improve on Final Fantasy VII's score in terms of the synth realism. This score also established his close affinity to the Final Fantasy series, which he has unrelentlessly retained throughout his career; following Final Fantasy VIII, he went on to be responsible for the synthesizer programming for Final Fantasy IX, Final Fantasy X, and Final Fantasy X-2. As he gained more experience and hardware resources improved, Kawamori made the synth become progressively better, while retaining his own style of programming.
As well as his role as a synthesizer operator, Keiji Kawamori is well-known as the bassist for The Black Mages. Set up in February 2003, the band has six members — Michio Okamiya (Guitar), Tsuyoshi Sekito (Guitar), Kenichiro Fukui (Keyboards), Keiji Kawamori (Bass Guitar), Arata Hanyuda (Drums), and Nobuo Uematsu (Organ). They have produced two albums to date, The Black Mages and The Black Mages 2 ~The Skies Above~, which featured Sekito's, Fukui's, and Okamiya's arrangements of various battle themes by Uematsu from the Final Fantasy series. They have also featured on the Dark Chronicle Premium Arrange and released a DVD of a live concert. With his slick solos and floppy hair, it was difficult to miss Kawamori in The Black Mages' concerts and DVD.
Like Square Enix's other veteran synthesizer programmers, Kawamori seems to have a strong future ahead of him. He worked alongside Nobuo Uematsu and Hitoshi Sakimoto as the synthesizer operator for Final Fantasy XII. This score, due to be released at the end of the year, is for the most eagerly anticipated game in years. As well as this, it has been confirmed that Keiji Kawamori will receive his first composing and arranging role to date for the score of the film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. Here, he will compose alongside Nobuo Uematsu and Tsuyoshi Sekito, with Kenichiro Fukui to arrange, as well. While his role will probably be relatively small, this will give him further recognition and may well set him up to compose for future Final Fantasy game scores. Clearly, Kawamori is a talented and prosperous musician who is only just beginning to receive recognition.
List of Game Projects
Note: This list only includes games that the composer has actively worked on, so those games that feature reprises of the composer's work from older titles are not included.
Key: C = Composer, A = Arranger, P = Performer, S = Sound Programmer, E = Sound Effects, M = Synthesizer Operator
| Year |
Game |
Role |
| Sony PlayStation |
| 1999 |
Final Fantasy VIII |
M |
| 2000 |
Final Fantasy IX |
M |
| Sony PlayStation 2 |
| 2001 |
Final Fantasy X |
M |
| 2003 |
Final Fantasy X-2 |
M |
| 2005 |
Final Fantasy XII |
M |
List of Albums
Original Scores
Arranged Albums
Other Albums
DVDs
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