Yuki Kajiura (梶浦由記,
Kajiura Yuki?), born August 6, 1965 in Tokyo, Japan, is a Japanese composer and music producer. She has provided the music for several popular anime series, such as
Madlax,
Noir,
.hack//SIGN,
Aquarian Age,
My-HiME,
Pandora Hearts,
My-Otome,
Tsubasa Chronicle, and one of the
Kimagure Orange Road movies (amongst others). She also assisted Toshihiko Sahashi with
Mobile Suit Gundam SEED and
Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny. Kajiura has also composed for the Xenosaga video game series, namely the cutscene music for
Xenosaga II and the entire
Xenosaga III game soundtrack. She currently resides in Tokyo.
Due to her father's work, Kajiura lived in West Germany since 1972 and until her middle school years. Her first music piece, which she had written at the age of 7, was a farewell song for her grandmother. After graduating from college (back in Tokyo), she began working as a systems engineering programmer, but in 1992, she turned her career around to focus on her activities on music. She admits that it was her father who greatly influenced this decision, for he was a great opera and classical music admirer.
In July 1992, she made her debut in an all-female trio
See-Saw, then consisting of Chiaki Ishikawa (lead vocals), herself (back-up vocals, keyboards), and Yukiko Nishioka. In the following two years, the group released six singles and two albums but in 1995 they temporarily broke up. Nishioka decided to become a writer while Kajiura carried on with her solo musician career, composing music for other artists as well as sound producing for TV, commercials, films, anime and games.
In 2001, she and Chiaki Ishikawa reunited as See-Saw. Around the same time she became involved with Koichi Mashimo's anime studio Bee Train and their first widely popular project,
Noir. Despite the series' controversial status among the reviewers, all critics generally praised its OST[
citation needed] as a breakthrough in the anime music scene for its risky but highly successful mix of synth, opera, and French-flaired sound.
Kajiura greatly enjoyed the degree of artistic freedom that Mashimo as the series' director offered her while collaborating on
Noir, therefore their collaboration extended to many of his later projects, with the latest (as of 2007) being
El Cazador de la Bruja. For example, Mashimo would never set any distinctive limitations or goals before her, allowing her to compose whatever she pleases. Afterwards, he would just take the samples he thought appropriate and insert it to whenever he wanted them to play.
Source:
Wikipedia 
