Evan Call
American composer (born 1988)
Evan Call (born June 29, 1988) is an American composer and arranger working in Japan. He has composed music for multiple anime series, such as Violet Evergarden, Muv-Luv Alternative and Frieren: Beyond Journey's End. Call is affiliated with the Japanese agency Miracle Bus and was previously a member of the musical group Elements Garden.
01Biography
Call was born in California, U.S., on June 29, 1988, and grew up in the city of Lincoln. As a teenager, Call was diagnosed with occipital neuralgia and had to take a break from going to school. During that time, he learned to play bluegrass guitar from a local teacher. Call later made a friend in his hometown who taught him about Japanese anime and video games, which prompted him to start composing orchestral music. He joined the choir club when he entered high school. After graduating, Call enrolled at the Berklee College of Music, where he majored in film scoring.
After graduating from college, he debated if he should pursue a career in film music in Hollywood. In the end, he decided to move to Japan on a tourist visa to work in the anime and game industry. Three months after his arrival, he was introduced to Junpei Fujita, a music creator working at Elements Garden. After an interview with Fujita and a review of his music portfolio, Call joined Elements Garden. He began composing music in Japan in 2012, where he gained attention for his grand arrangements and impressive symphonic music. After his employment, Call was introduced to Yōta Tsuruoka, a sound director at Kyoto Animation. Alongside Tsuruoka, Call began composing the soundtracks for the anime series Tokyo ESP and Violet Evergarden. Call would continue to compose soundtracks for other anime series and films such as Josee, the Tiger and the Fish. In 2025, Call won a Tokyo Anime Award in the Sound/Performance category, and was nominated for Best Score at the 9th Crunchyroll Anime Awards for his work on Frieren: Beyond Journey's End.
Call left Elements Garden on June 30, 2016, due to his contract expiring. Since 2017, he has been a member of the Japanese agency Miracle Bus.
02Musical style and influences
Call's musical style is primarily orchestral, often blending classical instrumentation and scoring with European folk elements. This influence is particularly evident in his work on Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, where he incorporated traditional instrumentation inspired by an early experience hearing folk music performed with instruments such as the psaltery and hammered dulcimer, which he described as sounding "like magic". He also cited the American folk song "Oh Shenandoah" as an inspiration for its nostalgic, "coming home" feeling, which he reflects in his compositions.
03Works
Anime
| Year | Title | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | Symphogear G | With Junpei Fujita, Noriyasu Agematsu, and Hitoshi Fujima | |
| 2014 | When Supernatural Battles Became Commonplace | With Junpei Fujita and Haruki Mori | |
| Kamigami no Asobi | With Junpei Fujita and Hitoshi Fujima | ||
| Tokyo ESP | |||
| 2015 | Tantei Kageki Milky Holmes TD | With Daisuke Kikuta, Haruki Mori, and Tomohiro Kita | |
| Symphogear GX | With Junpei Fujita and Hitoshi Fujima | ||
| Dance with Devils | With Junpei Fujita | ||
| 2016 | Schwarzesmarken | ||
| Big Order | |||
| Aokana: Four Rhythm Across the Blue | With Junpei Fujita and Seima Iwahashi | ||
| 2017 | Chronos Ruler | ||
| 2018 | Hakumei and Mikochi | ||
| Violet Evergarden | |||
| 2019 | YU-NO: A Girl Who Chants Love at the Bound of this World | With Keishi Yonao, Ryū Takami, and Ryū Kawamura | |
| Midnight Occult Civil Servants | |||
| 2020 | Appare-Ranman! | ||
| 2021 | Muv-Luv Alternative | ||
| The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window | |||
| 2022 | Muv-Luv Alternative (season 2) | ||
| 2023 | My Happy Marriage | ||
| Frieren: Beyond Journey's End | #77 in the German Album Charts | ||
| 2024 | Sengoku Youko | ||
| 2025 | My Happy Marriage (season 2) | ||
| Pokémon: Dragonite and the Special Delivery | |||
| Gundam: Next Universal Century | |||
| Hell Teacher: Jigoku Sensei Nube | |||
| Necronomico and the Cosmic Horror Show | |||
| 2026 | Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (season 2) |
Anime films
| Year | Title | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Bodacious Space Pirates: Abyss of Hyperspace | With Noriyasu Agematsu, Junpei Fujita, and Hitoshi Fujima | |
| 2016 | Tantei Opera Milky Holmes the Movie: Milky Holmes' Counterattack | With Seima Iwahashi | |
| 2019 | Violet Evergarden: Eternity and the Auto Memory Doll | ||
| 2020 | Violet Evergarden: The Movie | ||
| Josee, the Tiger and the Fish | |||
| 2023 | Gold Kingdom and Water Kingdom |
Video games
| Year | Title | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Chaos Rings III | Arrangement with Junpei Fujita and Hitoshi Fujima | |
| Shining Resonance | With Junpei Fujita, Hitoshi Fujima, and Tomohiro Kita | ||
| 2015 | Chronos Ring | With Yoko Shimomura and Kenji Ito |
Television dramas
| Year | Title | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Star Concerto: Ore to Kimi no Idol Dō | ||
| Sayonara, Enari-kun | |||
| Keishichō Ikimono Gakari | With Audio Highs | ||
| 2018 | Holiday Love | With Masaru Yokoyama | |
| Daisy Luck | With Moe Hyuga | ||
| Harassment Game | |||
| Iyo! Benkei | |||
| 2019 | Keiji Zero | With Masaru Yokoyama | |
| Hotarugusa: Nana no Ken | |||
| 2022 | The 13 Lords of the Shogun | Taiga drama | |
| 2024 | Swallows |
Live-action films
| Year | Title | Ref. |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Until I Meet September's Love |
Television programs
| Year | Title | Ref. |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Weekend Kansai | |
| 2019 | NHK Special Dinosaur Superworld | |
| 2020 | NHK Sunday/Saturday Sports |
Other involvements
| Year | Title | Artist | Role(s) | Album | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | "Avalon no Ōkan" | Nana Mizuki | Arrangements | Rockbound Neighbors | |
| 2013 | "Neverending Dream" | Minori Chihara | Composition & arrangements | Neo Fantasia | |
| 2014 | "Ai no Hi" | Ayahi Takagaki | Non-album single | ||
| "Aurora" | Tomoaki Maeno (as Camus) | Non-album single (Uta no Prince-sama) | |||
| "Tenka Muteki no Shinobi Michi" |
|
Arrangements | |||
| "Yasashisa no Tsubomi" | Faylan | Zero Hearts | |||
| "Meisō Solitude" | Kato*Fuku | Arrangements, with Seima Iwahashi | With | ||
| 2015 | "Arigatō, Daisuki" | Minori Chihara | Arrangements | Innocent Age | |
| "Pirates of the Frontier" |
|
Non-album single (Uta no Prince-sama) | |||
| "Saintly Territory" | Tomoaki Maeno (as Camus) | ||||
| "Seien Brave Heart" | Kenichi Suzumura (as Masato Hijirikawa) | Composition & arrangements | |||
| "Tenshi no Inori" | Shouta Aoi | Unlimited | |||
| "Alice to Toki no Yurikago" | Kato*Fuku | Wonder Tale: Smile to Happiness to Fushigi na Hon | |||
| "Tsunagareta Asa ni" | |||||
| 2016 | "Lovely Eyes" |
|
Arrangements | Non-album single (Uta no Prince-sama) | |
| "Give Me Your Heart: Mayoeru Kohitsuji" |
|
Composition & arrangements | Non-album single (Kamigami no Asobi InFinite) | ||
| 2017 | "Akane-iro ni Kakushite" | Ayane Sakura (as Hikari Tsuneki) | Non-album single (Seiren) | ||
| "Muteki no Megami" | Shino Shimoji (as Tōru Miyamae) | ||||
| "Koi no Theory" | Juri Kimura (as Kyōko Tōno) | Arrangements | |||
| 2018 | "Union!!" | 765 Million Allstars | Non-album single (The Idolmaster Million Live!) | ||
| "Sincerely" | True | Arrangements, with Shōta Horie | Violet Evergarden: Automemories Violet Evergarden Vocal Album: Song Letters |
||
| "The Songstress Aria" | Composition, arrangements & lyrics | ||||
| "Letter" | Arrangements | ||||
| "Believe in..." | Aira Yūki | Composition & arrangements | |||
| 2020 | "Will (Movie Version)" | True | Violet Evergarden: Echo Through Eternity | ||
| "Mirai no Hito e (Movie Version)" | Arrangements | ||||
| "Michishirube (Movie Version)" | Minori Chihara | ||||
| "Dear Violet" | Yui Ishikawa | Composition & arrangements | Letters and Doll: Looking Back on the Memories of Violet Evergarden | ||
| "Jōjō" | Nino | Synapusyu Songs | |||
| 2021 | "Makka Akka Aki" | Kyogo Kawaguchi | Synapusyu Songs 2 | ||
| "Breakers" | Wataru Hatano | Non-album single (The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window) | |||
| 2023 | "Anytime Anywhere" | Milet | Arrangements | Non-album single (Frieren: Beyond Journey's End) | |
| "Bliss" | Composition & arrangements | "Anytime Anywhere" (single) | |||
| 2025 | "Paper Airplane" | Suis | Composition & lyrics | Non-album single (Pokémon: Dragonite and the Special Delivery) | |
| "Sora to Yakusoku" | Mao Itō (as China Kuramoto) | Composition & arrangement | Non-album single (Gakuen Idolmaster) | ||
| 2026 | "The Story of Us" | Milet | Arrangements | Non-album single (Frieren: Beyond Journey's End season 2) |
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Evan Call”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Evan Call at MCM Comic Con London 22 May 2026 01 (cropped).jpg by DavidPMaynard, CC BY-SA 4.0
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