100Members
Member Profiles
Percussionist
Kazumasa Ohya
Kazumasa Ohya was born in 1985. He is originally from Koyaguchi in Hashimoto City in Wakayama Prefecture.
Kazumasa Ohya has loved music since he was a small child, and it was at the age of 13 in the Koyaguchi Middle School Brass Band Club that he discovered percussion instruments. As part of the Nara Prefecture Tenri High School Brass Band Club, he won a gold medal at the 50th All Japan Brass Band Competition.
In 2009, Ohya graduated from the Department of Instrumental Music at the Tokyo University of the Arts.
He has played for, and appeared in, movies, TV programs, commercials, radio spots, animated features, video game and various other media, as well as contributed to recordings and live performances of major artists. He is a member of HARROMI-YAH, a three-person percussion troop, and Ensemble FOVE, a musical ensemble.
In October 2018, he helped perform “Ryu no Moshi-go (Heaven-sent Dragon Child)” at the celebration festival for Kumano Hongu Taisha Grand Shrine’s 2,050 year anniversary, which was held at Kumano Hongu Taisha in Wakayama Prefecture.
It is because we die that we learn to live.
Koya and Kumano are special places. At the entrance of Koyasan is a Koyaguchi, my hometown. It was there, surrounded by abundant nature, that I discovered music, and spent my childhood engaged in carefree fun.
When I was very little, my father would sometimes put me in the back seat of the car and drive us to the Peak of Koyasan.
I hated Koyasan. The winding roads always made me carsick. And there was nothing fun up there for a little kid to do. I hated it so much that, despite being a greedy little glutton, I wouldn’t even eat the grilled mochi rice cakes that Koyasan is local product.
But then I became an adult and decided to take a road trip by myself to Koyasan.
And what an amazing place it was!
Words cannot express how I felt, breathing in the air of Koyasan while savoring the delicious taste of a grilled mochi rice cake. It is a memory that will be with me always.
And now it is the sacred resting place of beloved family members.
There are things you only realize when you become an adult.
And for me, one of those is how much I love Koyasan.
more Members