Hayato Matsuo

Matsuo's mother was a piano and electone teacher, and she inspired him to enjoy classical music. She also organized concerts for local children to compose and perform music in, which he took part in. While in school, he was inspired by Yellow Magic Orchestra and Rick Wakeman.[1] He eventually attended Tokyo University of the Arts, where he focused on classical music. While in school, however, he also was involved in more popular music, and was involved with the progressive rock band G-Clef, filling in sometimes for members of the band, many of whom he was friends with.[2] He also provided some music for the band.[3] When he was near graduation, Matsuo was introduced to Koichi Sugiyama, the composer for the Dragon Quest franchise. Upon graduating, he went to work with Sugiyama.[2]

Matsuo began his career arranging Sugiyama's pieces for Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai in 1991. His first work as a composer also came in 1991, with the video game Master of Monsters. His first better-known work came in 1993 with Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen, which he co-composed with Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata.[2] Since then, he has worked on over 30 other video games, both as a composer and orchestrator.

Beginning in 1994, Matsuo has also worked as a composer for anime series. His first was Magic Knight Rayearth, which he considers to be a turning point in his career.[2] In 2003 he composed the soundtrack for the live-action television show Kamen Rider 555, and in the early 1990s he arranged pieces for orchestration for the Orchestral Game Music Concerts. While his early work was done as an entirely freelance composer, in 1995 Matuso was recruited by Kohei Tanaka to join Imagine.[2] Imagine is an independent music composition and sound effect group for video games, consisting of nine employees.[4] While Matsuo has never released an album of original works himself, he has released numerous original tracks on six albums released on Shinji Hosoe's Troubadour Records label.