Hirokazu Ando (安藤浩和, Ando Hirokazu, born March 2, 1969) is a Japanese video game composer who is employed at game company HAL Laboratory. Along with former HAL composer Jun Ishikawa, he is best known for composing music for the Kirby series, starting with Kirby's Adventure. He has also composed for other games developed by the company, such as Super Smash Bros. (1999), Super Smash Bros. Melee (2001) and the BoxBoy! series.
Ando started learning to play the electone aged 3–4 up to his second year in high school. It was this experience that also taught him how to read chords and sheet music.[1] He listened to a wide variety of music as a child, including works by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Claude Debussy. Being immersed in music had allowed to think about sound a considerable amount and helped form his own sensibilities. Despite his musical background, Ando initially did not have interest in being a composer.
He attended Hirosaki University in order to major in physics in the science department. While he was in college, he had purchased an MSX computer that sparked an initial interest in video games. Ando became inspired to be a video game composer after playing Dragon Quest II for the first time and being impressed by its music.[3] He then created his own music playing program and sent it to HAL. Soon after, he was hired to work on sound.