Short answers, pulled from the story.
Nobuo Uematsu is a Japanese composer and keyboardist born on the 21st of March, 1959, in Kochi, Japan. He is best known for composing the music for the Final Fantasy video game series by Square Enix. Classic FM in Britain has called him the Beethoven of game music.
Yes, Nobuo Uematsu is entirely self-taught. He began playing the piano at age twelve and never took formal piano lessons. He composed music for television commercials and amateur bands before joining Square in 1986.
Nobuo Uematsu was the keyboardist in The Black Mages, a rock band formed in 2002 by Square colleagues Kenichiro Fukui and Tsuyoshi Sekito that performed hard rock versions of his Final Fantasy compositions. After The Black Mages wound down, he formed the Earthbound Papas in 2011 as its successor.
The first performance of Nobuo Uematsu's Final Fantasy music outside Japan took place at the Symphonic Game Music Concert in Leipzig, Germany in 2003. The first North American concert, Dear Friends - Music from Final Fantasy, was held on the 10th of May, 2004, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Nobuo Uematsu has cited Elton John as his single biggest musical influence, saying he wanted to be like him. Other major inspirations include the Beatles, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Simon and Garfunkel, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, and classical composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
Nobuo Uematsu announced on the 15th of October, 2024, that Fantasian would be his last project as a video game composer. He later clarified that he is not retiring entirely but will no longer take on full game soundtracks, remaining open to composing individual pieces such as theme songs.