1980–2004: Early life Sawano was born in
Tokyo, Japan. He started playing piano in elementary school. By this time, he was influenced by the Japanese singer-songwriter
Aska, from the duo
Chage and Aska, whose songs led him to vaguely dream about working in music. In junior high school, he joined a band and began learning
keyboard to take charge of it in the group. From the age of 17, Sawano studied composition,
arrangement, and
orchestration under the music teacher Nobuchika Tsuboi. When he was in his final years of high school, he had a desire to work on soundtrack music, so he went to a vocational school focused in composition. Around this period, he used to listen to the soundtrack of
Studio Ghibli's movies, which led him to be influenced by the film score composer
Joe Hisaishi. From 2006 to 2009, he composed music for several anime adaptations of manga, visual novels, and video game series including
Iryu Team Medical Dragon,
Soul Link ,
Yoake Mae yori Ruriino Na Crescent Love, and
Sengoku Basara. During this time, he would also publish his first original album,
Musica, in 2009. In 2010, he was involved with his first major series,
Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, which he mentioned having worked on with the hope that this series would trigger an offer for many further projects. In 2013, he gained wider fame with his role as the composer for the anime adaptation of
Hajime Isayama's manga series
Attack on Titan. In 2014, he launched a vocal song project under the name "SawanoHiroyuki[nZk]", Since then his songs under this vocal song project have also been used as the opening and ending themes for various anime, including
Aldnoah.Zero,
Seraph of the End,
Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn RE:0096,
Re:Creators, and
Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These. The project was moved to the
Sacra Music record label under
Sony Music Entertainment Japan in April 2017. On July 2, 2017, Sawano's contract with Legendoor was terminated after approximately 12 years. He is now represented by VV-ALKLINE. In 2020, Sawano started a soundtrack revival project called "Project【emU】", arranging
suites for the soundtracks of anime series he has been involved with. The suites are recorded and filmed in a studio, with guest musicians and vocalists; he has so far released suits for
Attack on Titan,
Guilty Crown,
The Seven Deadly Sins, and
Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn. In February 2021, he ran a "Project【emU】" concert event, "Sawano Hiroyuki LIVE【emU】2021", at the Tachikawa Stage Garden and streamed to overseas audiences, where he performed many of the main tracks from anime scores he worked on. On March 13, 2022, he held the "Hiroyuki Sawano LIVE [nZk]007" concert, at
Tokyo International Forum. The event featured guest vocalists Akihito Okano, Jean-Ken Johnny,
ReoNa, mizuki, mpi, Benjamin, Laco, and
SennaRin. Later, on April 23, the event was streamed to overseas audiences. In April 2022, he produced the debut
extended play of the singer SennaRin. The EP,
Dignified, was released on April 13, followed by an announcement that he would continue as a producer for her works. In September 2022, he announced his new musical group NAQT VANE, for which he acted as total producer and collaborated with singer Harukaze and Classic 6 as design director. The debut single, "Break Free", was released on September 16, 2022. == Musical style and influences ==