Today's update is the first in a series dedicated to documenting the lives and works of the game industry's leading composers. Today, we offer thorough and insightful biographies of all 22 members of the main Square Enix composing team, past and present. These biographies have all been thoroughly revised, updated, and sometimes completely rewritten since their last update several years ago:

Present Members

Takeharu Ishimoto Programmer turned Square Enix's star composer	Hidenori Iwasaki Programmer and composer of the Front Mission series	Keiji Kawamori Lead synthesizer operator for Final Fantasy
Naoshi Mizuta Main composer of the Final Fantasy XI franchise	Hirosato Noda Experienced techie and "Popcorn" imitator	Tsuyoshi Sekito The Last Remnant composer and Black Mages guitarist
Masayoshi Soken Sports composer and Final Fantasy XIV sound director	Mitsuto Suzuki This newbie is an electronic music supremo	Yasuhiro Yamanaka Engineer working hard behind-the-scenes
Ryo Yamazaki Versatile partner of Hamauzu and Iwasaki

Past Members

Takahito Eguchi Square composer turned prolific music producer	Kenichiro Fukui Versatile arranger and keyboardist of The Black Mages	Masashi Hamauzu Final Fantasy XIII composer and piano arranger
Kenji Ito Composer of SaGa, Mana, and Culdcept series	Hiroki Kikuta Cult composer currently enjoying a revival	Noriko Matsueda Retired composer of Racing Lagoon and Front Mission
Yasunori Mitsuda Chrono and Xeno composer behind Procyon Studio	Junya Nakano Focused on rhythm and timbre in Square Enix works	Ryuji Sasai Rocker behind various old-school favourites
Yoko Shimomura Street Fighter, Mana, and Kingdom Hearts composer	Kumi Tanioka Composer of Crystal Chronicles and Code Age	Nobuo Uematsu Final Fantasy icon enjoying successful freelance career

The out-of-date list of albums and game projects has been removed for each composer. Up-to-date lists will be automatically generated from our database when the site is relaunched in the near future. Look out for more biography updates dedicated to other Eastern and Western composers over the next month.