Yoko Shimomura

Yoko Shimomura is a Japanese video game composer and musician. She is well known in the Mario series for composing the music for the Mario & Luigi series and Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. Her best music is considered to be in the Kingdom Hearts series.

Early Life
Yoko Shimomura was born on October 19, 1967 in Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. At the age of four, she started taking piano lessons and after being inspired by classical music, she began to play the piano randomly. After attending Osaka College of Music, She intended to become a piano instructor, but because she had been an avid gamer for many years, she decided to send some samples of her work to various video game companies. Afterwards, she began working for Capcom.

Career
Shimomura later transferred to Squresoft (now known as Square Enix). In 1996, she composed and arranged the music in Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, arranging music from Kōji Kondō's Mario series music, and three tracks from Final Fantasy IV by Nobuo Uematsu.

After leaving Square Enix in 2002, she became a freelancer. She worked on the music for Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga in 2003. Later in 2005, she composed the music for Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, and in 2009 she composed the music for Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story.