Yusuke Hatano

Biography

Yusuke Hatano was born in New Jersey, USA in 1986 and holds Japanese nationality through his father from Kyoto. He moved frequently in his childhood due to his father's work, living in the US, Japan, Malaysia, and Singapore. He studied statistics at the University of Queensland in Australia but switched to music after being deeply moved by Japanese composer Nobuo Uematsu's work on the Final Fantasy game series. He earned a Bachelor's degree in music composition in 2010 and won the Percy Brier Memorial Award for his classical piece "Oriental Isolation". He settled in Hong Kong in summer 2011 after years as a jazz pianist in Brisbane, then founded a music production company in 2012. He entered the Hong Kong film scoring scene in 2013 through a recommendation from lyricist Lam Man Chung. He won the Best Original Film Score at the 36th Hong Kong Film Awards in 2017 for the film "Soul Mate" alongside composer Kim Pai Tak, and received two additional awards that same year.