Interview with Gabriele Roberto - Devil May Cry Anime Composer
I first encountered Gabriele Roberto over the net, and he seemed like a light-hearted, fun-loving guy. But I seriously thought that he was joking about having been contacted by Grand Funk. I wouldn’t believe it until his profile was posted in the Grand Funk website… and soon worked with Yoko Kanno, and the rest is history.
(no, he’s not Gabriela Robin 
)
Taking an excerpt from his biography at his official website
After his Diploma in Composition achieved in Italy in Alessandria Conservatoire he completed the Postgraduate Diploma in Composition at the Royal College of Music in London studying with Joseph Horovitz and Julian Anderson.
…
Since November 2005 Gabriele began to work for GrandFunk Inc., leader Japanese music production company. He scored the orchestral soundtrack for the last movie by Director Tetsuya Nakashima titled “Kiraware Matsuko No Isshou” (Memories of Matsuko) . The music has been recorded at Victor Studios and conducted by Mr. Yasuaki Itakura, director of the Tokyo Sinfonietta.
Since then he continues to live and work as a composer in Tokyo, writing music for tv commercials and orchestral arrangements for JPop artists (M-flo, Bonnie Pink, Chara, Yukawa Shione) published by Warner Music, Universal and Toshiba Emi.
Now, Gabriele’s newest work is for the soundtrack of the Devil May Cry anime, from which the composer is named as “rungran”. The name is a collective for all the composers who wrote for the anime, and somehow resembles the name of the studio. Rungran, Grandfunk. Say it out loud.
Price: Y3,046 (approx $26.85)
Details at Amazon.com
So on with our little interview:
Mai: How did you get involved in making the soundtrack for Devil May Cry?
Gabriele: Grandfunk is my agent now, and they are the producer for the music of Devil May Cry, so the step was easy…
Mai: How many songs did you make for the series?
Gabriele: I wrote nine songs and five or six of them, I guess, are in the OST’s cd.
Mai: How did you go about composing the music?
Gabriele: I had meetings with the music producer (Grandfunk) where they were describing to me the scene and the mood the music had to fit (as I don’t speak fluent Japanese yet a translator was helping, sometimes my girlfriend Aiko).
After that I was going back home and start to compose… it’s not too wierd that the musical themes can come even when you are just on the train on your way home - when you have to write six orchestral pieces, and give in the demos, in ten days, any minute is precious…
So I wrote the music without watching the video yet, a part from a very short presentation.
As the music in the anime is so various (from orchestral to kind of heavy metal!…) is a team work and mainly three composers are involved (including me).
I guess they asked me to write the pieces they think fit more my style.
Mai: Tell us about your future works.
Gabriele: In the future I am continuing to work in Japan as things are going really well there for me.
As I started to write music also for Pang Ho-Cheung’s movies, it’s very fresh the news that I have been nominated for the Golden Bauhinia Awards (in Hong Kong) for the soundtrack I wrote for his last movie (The Exodus). Apparently he wishes me to write the music for his new work.
And it might come an other big project from Japan, but it’s not sure… so… better not to talk about it yet!…
Mai: Anything else you would like to say to your fans?
Gabriele: Do I have already some fans?…
Mai: But of course Thanks for taking some time to answer this interview 
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August 22nd, 2007 at 1:11 am
Gabu is getting BIIGGGGG !!!!!! ^^
August 22nd, 2007 at 9:50 am
One day we’ll see his name on the covers of the CDs, just like the way Kanno’s name appears now
August 24th, 2007 at 12:17 am
i liked the music for d.m.c, o.s.t i just wish they put dante’s theme music from the anime on to the album,because its one of my fav’s but still a great cd.