Laura Shigihara is an American-born Japanese singer-songwriter, video game developer, composer for video games and a Twitch streamer. She is best known as the lead composer and sound designer for the tower defense gamePlants vs. Zombies, and as the creator of the highly acclaimed indie RPGRakuen. Shigihara has worked on over 30 other published video game titles including Deltarune, World of Warcraft, To the Moon, High School Story, and the 5th Anniversary Edition of Super Meat Boy. She co-created the ending theme song for with C418, and worked together with Yasunori Mitsuda on the official Square Enix Chrono Trigger/Chrono Cross 20th Anniversary Album.
Biography
Shigihara, whose mother is French and father is Japanese, grew up in both the United States and Japan. She was classically trained on the piano for 11 years, and taught herself guitar and drums. 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. 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. From there she built up her portfolio and has worked on over 30 published titles including Plants vs. Zombies, Deltarune, World of Warcraft, Minecraft, and the indie RPG To the Moon. She participated in Akira Yamaoka's charity album where she contributed an original song called "Jump", alongside other composers like Nobuo Uematsu and Yasunori Mitsuda. On November 16, 2011, she released her single "Cube Land" in relation to Minecraft and Plants vs. Zombies. Shigihara is also active as a game designer—she created the adventure gameRakuen. Shigihara is a Christian. Shigihara is a Twitch streamer who streams weekly performing songs she composed, as well as singing English/Japanese cover songs of various genre.
