Background
Yamashita was born in Amagasaki, Hyōgo, Japan.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
Kinuyo Yamashita
Edit Profile山下 絹代
Education
After studying electronic engineering at the two-year college Osaka Electro-Communication University, she graduated in 1986 and went to work for Konami.
Career
Her best known soundtrack is Konami"s Castlevania, which was also her debut work. She was credited under the pseudonym James Banana for her work on the Nintendo Entertainment System version of the game. This pseudonym was a pun of the name James Bernard, the film composer of the 1958 film Dracula.
Many other names from the credits showed at the end of the game were puns of personalities related to monster/horror media as well.
She began playing the piano at the age of four and took piano lessons as a child. After leaving Konami, Yamashita established a career as an independent composer.
She moved to the United States in 2010, and currently resides in Montague, New Jersey. In 1986, Yamashita composed her first soundtrack to the video game Castlevania under strict hardware constraints.
After her success in composing the Castlevania soundtrack, Yamashita composed for other games with Konami, including Esper Dream, Arumana no Kiseki, Stinger, Maze of Galious, Knightmare III: Shalom, and Parodius.
She was part of the original Konami Kukeiha Club in-house band. In 1989, she left Konami to become a freelance composer. Yamashita continued to compose independently in the new millennium, working on titles such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Game Boy Advance), Croc 2 (GBC), Monsters, Incorporated.
(GBA), World Wildlife Fund Road to WrestleMania (GBA), Power Rangers: Dino Thunder (GBA), Keitai Denjū Telefang (GBC), and other games in the Medabot series.
From 1991 to 1995, Yamashita formed a duo ensemble called "Honey Honey" which performed live covers of American People’s and Jazz music She played the piano, alto saxophone and sang background vocals.
Yamashita also composes J-People’s songs for Japanese artists under the independent label Rocketeers and Rhythm & Blues songs independently for American artists. In 2009, Yamashita completed the arrangement for "Stage 4" on the Dodonpachi Dai-Ō-Jō remix Civil Defense released in Japan.
She also composed a song for the Wii game Walk lieutenant Out.
In September 2009, Yamashita was invited as a special guest to Video Games Live at their concert event in Tokyo, where she appeared on stage after a performance of Castlevania produced by Tommy Tallarico. In 2010 and 2011, she continued to make appearances with Video Games Live performing "Castlevania Rock" with orchestras at venues including NJPAC in New Jersey, the Tilles Center in New York and the Nokia Theatre in Los Los Angeles
