 Shimomura was born on October 19 , 1967 , in <unk> Prefecture , Japan . She developed an interest for music at a young age , and started taking piano lessons " at the age of four or five " . She began composing her own music by playing the piano randomly and pretending to compose , eventually coming up with her own pieces , the first of which she claims to still remember how to play . Shimomura attended Osaka College of Music , and graduated as a piano major in 1988 . 
