Akira Yamaoka

Akira YAMAOKA (山岡晃 YAMAOKA Akira, born February 6, 1968 in Niigata, Japan) has composed music for dozens of Konami video games. Yamaoka attended Tokyo Art College, where he studied product design and interior. He joined Konami on September 21, 1993, after previously being a freelance music composer.

He is best known for his work on the Silent Hill series for which he composed all the music and sound effects in all five current games (excluding Silent Hill Play Novel for Game Boy Advance), as well as composing all music for the newly released Silent Hill: Homecoming. Some of the music from the first three games was also remixed and used in the Silent Hill movie. He also played a doubly important role as producer of the third and fourth Silent Hill games (which were available for PlayStation 2/PC and PlayStation 2/Xbox/PC). His music from Silent Hill 2 was performed live in 2005 at the third Symphonic Game Music Concert in Leipzig, Germany and at the world-premiere of PLAY! A Video Game Symphony on May 27, 2006 in Chicago, Illinois, where Yamaoka himself accompanied the orchestra with an electric guitar. As well, Yamaoka actively composes music for Konami's Bemani line of games, particularly, the Beatmania IIDX series.

His first original, non-soundtrack album, iFUTURELIST, was released in January 2006.

There is also a polish metal band called "Silent Hill". They will hopefully find their place on a dedicated artist page ["Silent Hill (band)" perhaps?] soon.

Incidentally, there is a third artist known as Silent Hill, who makes music in the Psytrance genre. Currently, plays scrobbled for this artist are redirected to this page.

Games Credited:
Silent Hill: Homecoming (2008), Konami Corporation
Silent Hill Origins(2007), Konami Corporation
The White Chamber (2005), Studio Trophis
Dance Dance Revolution: Ultramix 2 (2004), Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc.
Rumble Roses (2004), Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc.
Silent Hill 4: The Room (2004), Konami Corporation
Silent Hill 3 (2003), Konami Digital Entertainment GmbH
Contra: Shattered Soldier (2002), Konami Corporation
DDRMAX 2: Dance Dance Revolution (2002), Konami Corporation
Silent Hill 2 (2001), Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc.
Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams (2001), Konami of America, Inc.
Silent Hill (1999), Konami Corporation
Suikoden II (1998), Konami Corporation
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (1997), Konami Corporation
Snatcher (1994), Konami Corporation