Yoko Kanno

1964- . Arguably the greatest composer working in modern Japanese animation, Kanno was born in Miyagi Prefecture and first found fame as the keyboard player with the band TETSU100%. She subsequently moved into composing for television dramas, commercials and, ultimately anime-at first guesting on Please Save My Earth. A "representative" work is a difficult thing to find for Kanno, since she excels at using obscure instruments, eclectic mixtures of styles, and mass orchestrations. Her work embraces the classical scoring of Macross Plus and Escaflowne and the dance-influenced tracks of Ghost in the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex. She often works with a team of collaborators, sharing the credit for some work with her husband Hajime Mizoguchi, and occasional collaborators such as Akino Arai, Tim Jensen, and Steve Conte. She formed the jazz band Seatbelts as part of the composing process for Cowboy Bebop. Rumors persist that "Gabriela Robin," who sings on some of Kanno's albums, is a pseudonym for the composer herself.