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Kentaro Haneda
| Overview | Biography | Discography | Game Projects | Interviews |
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Date of Birth: | January 12, 1949 (Tokyo) |
| Date of Death: | June 2, 2007 (Tokyo, Liver Cancer) | |
| Education: | Piano Performance at University | |
| Instruments: | Piano | |
| Game Works: | Wizardry Series, Symphony Ys & Sorcerian |
Brief Profile
Kentaro Haneda was a classically-trained virtuosic pianist and composer. From 1973, he worked as a studio musician on many pop productions and, in 1978, made his anime debut with the score for the Treasure Island series. Subsequent scores included Space Adventure Cobra, Robotech: The Macross Saga, the award-winning Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Barefoot Gen, God Mazinger, Detective Holmes, Super Dimension Century Orguss, Bagi, the Monster of Mighty Nature, and Bye Bye Jupiter.
He also scored the Japanese versions of the original Wizardry trilogy in a Baroque-influenced style despite limitations of the early computers he worked on. He developed them into classically rigorous synthesized symphonic suites and opened the Orchestral Game Concert series with renditions of the series' music. Other game works included three more Wizardry scores, the arrangement of Symphony Ys and Symphony Sorcerian, and the production of a Genso Suikoden arranged album.
In his mid-30s, Haneda concentrated hard on classical performance again, performing romantic repertoire with various orchestras. He also released a large number of CDs dedicated to classical, pop, Disney, Christmas, Japanese poetry, and his musical methodology. He reinvented his career at the turn of the century, combining piano performance, conducting, university lecturing, and hosting the long-running music program Daimei no Nai Ongakukai 21. On June 2, 2007, he died from liver cancer leaving his wife Sachiko.
