An accomplished musician who’s performed at some of the world’s leading classical music venues is now a faculty member at a South Coast university.
This Friday, the cellist is being featured in a free concert in Ventura County.
Yoshika Masuda has performed at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Sydney Concert Hall in Australia, as well as in Vienna and Tokyo. He’s also a college professor on the South Coast. The musician who studied at the Royal Northern College of Music in England, and the USC Thornton School of Music is now an Assistant Professor of Music, and Director of String Studies at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks.
Masuda first became interested in music as a young boy in his hometown of Kobe, Japan. His father played jazz in his spare time at a local club, and the young boy would go with him. Because of that interest,
Masuda’s dad bought him his first musical instrument, a cello. The boy’s father then took the next step, getting him music lessons. But then, nature would throw Masuda and his family a twist. In January of 2005, a magnitude 6.9 earthquake devastated the Kobe.
Masuda’s family was unhurt, but they lost their home. The then nine year old boy’s parents decided to move the family to Sydney, Australia, where they had relatives. For the boy, what started as a hardship turned into opportunity, as he was accepted into a prized Sydney music school. He then went on to study in England for five years, before moving to Los Angeles, and getting his doctorate at USC.
Masuda says as a perfomer, he feels a lot of responsibility to bring the music to life for audiences.
On Friday night, Masuda will perform a variety of classical music spanning three centuries. The free faculty recital will be at CLU’s Samuelson Chapel, beginning at 7:30 p.m. Friday. CLU is the parent of KCLU Radio.