Yoshika Masuda

Cellist Yoshika Masuda specializes in chamber music and has premiered several important contemporary works. He is also a significant educator. Masuda was born around 1986 in Kobe, Japan; a 2017 interview in the Ventura County Star gave his age as 31. His father was an amateur jazz bassist who noticed his five-year-old son's interest in the strings of his bass when he came to gigs and bought him a cello to see if his talent might develop. Masuda took lessons in Japan, and then, when his family moved to Australia after their home was destroyed by an earthquake, he continued his studies with Georg Pedersen at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. At 14, he settled on a musical career after playing Max Bruch's Kol Nidre for a paralyzed hospital patient and seeing a tear roll down her cheek. Masuda earned a scholarship to Britain's Royal Northern College of Music, where he received bachelor's and master's degrees. His principal teachers were Thomas Demenga, Hannah Roberts, David Geringas, and Ralph Kirshbaum; Masuda entered the doctoral program at the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California with Kirshbaum, whom he had first met in Australia at the age of 15. He completed his D.M.A. at USC in 2016. During this period, he served as a cello instructor at Loyola Marymount University, California Lutheran University, and the French Conservatory of Music in Beverly Hills. He has collaborated with several musicians from the pop world, making his recording debut on Leonard Cohen's 2016 album You Want It Darker. He was also heard on the soundtrack of the 2018 film Crazy Rich Asians. Masuda's career has been genuinely international, taking to Australia, East Asia, the Americas, and Europe. He is in demand at festivals, appearing at summer events in Aldeburgh and Leicester in the U.K., the Kirishima Music Festival in Japan, and the Yellow Barn Music Festival and Piatigorsky International Cello Festival in the U.S., among others. Masuda has specialized in chamber music, co-founding the Sakura Cello Quintet and serving as resident cellist at the Los Angeles-area musical salon, Salastina. He is also a former member of the Rolston Quartet. Masuda has performed with such musicians as pianists Peter Frankl and Gilbert Kalish and violinist Donald Weilerstein. In 2022, Masuda joined the violin faculty at Chapman University in Orange, California, as assistant professor. He released his debut album, Hidden Flame, in 2024 on the Avie label, backed by pianist HyeJin Kim.
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