Laura Shigihara

Laura Shigihara is a video game composer, independent game developer, and singer-songwriter. She has created music and sound for over 25 videogames titles,^[1] And is creating her own game called Rakuen^[2] she is best known as the lead composer and sound designer for the tower defense video game Plants vs. Zombies.^[3] She is half-Japanese,^[4] and in addition to writing and performing the English version of the ending credits song, "Zombies on Your Lawn", she also wrote and performed the Japanese version, "Uraniwa ni Zombies ga." Shigihara provided vocals for the Singing Sunflower pet in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.^[5] She also participated in Akira Yamaoka's Play for Japan charity album alongside other composers like Nobuo Uematsu and Yasunori Mitsuda.^[6]

Biography

Shigihara, whose mother is French-American and father is Japanese, grew up in both the US and Japan.^[7] She was classically trained on the piano for 11 years, and taught herself guitar and drums. She grew up loving video games and playing video game music on the piano by ear. During college, she was given an old version of Cakewalk which she used to start learning about mixing, arranging, and production by recreating old video game soundtracks and composing her own songs. After a friend leaked her original material to record companies in Japan, Shigihara was offered record contracts as a singer there, but ended up turning them down for personal reasons.^[8]

Shortly after returning to the US, Shigihara took a job as the sound director for a company that produced an audio talk show and English learning materials through Apple Japan. She also released a studio album and composed her first video game soundtrack for a small casual game called Wobbly Bobbly. She was so excited to be working on a video game that she told them she’d work for free. The company liked her work and paid her to create music for several subsequent projects.^[8] From there she built up her portfolio and has worked on over 25 published titles including Plants vs. Zombies, Ghost Harvest, World of Warcraft, Minecraft, and the indie RPG To the Moon.^[3] In her spare time, she has also been developing a music-based role playing game called Melolune,^[9] and has recently participated in Akira Yamaoka’s charity iTunes album Play for Japan where she contributed an original song called "Jump".^[10] On 16 November 2011, she released her single “Cube Land” in relation to Minecraft and Plants vs. Zombies.^[11] She is also well known for her Minecraft parodies, and the original Minecraft-based song "Cube Land".

Discography

Shigihara's works include:^[12]

• "Cube Land" (Minecraft)
• To the Moon original soundtrack (Freebird Games) with Kan Gao
• "From the Ground Up" (Minecraft)
• "Celestial Beings" (Celestial Mechanica)
• Plants vs. Zombies: The Soundtrack (Plants vs. Zombies)
• "Blood Elf Druids" (World of Warcraft)
• Melolune: The Original Soundtrack Part 1 (Melolune, an original game made by Shigihara using the RPG Maker XP engine)
• "My Blue Dream"
• "Everything's Alright" (To the Moon)
• Partnered with C418 in "Tsuki no Koibumi" (C418's, one) ^[13]
• Also featured in C418's "Tsuki no Koibumi 2" (C418's 148) ^[14]
• "First Day" (High School Story)
• "Aether C" (The Basement Collection)

See also

• Plants vs. Zombies soundtrack
• C418

References

External links

• Laura Shigihara's blog
• YouTube channel
• BandCamp music store
• Official Facebook