ARTISTS

Guitar OHAGI Yasuji

PROFILE


After graduating from high school, Yasuji moved to Paris to study music at Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris and Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris. In 1998, he received the 2nd prize and the Special Jury Award (the Leo Brouwer Award) at the Havana International Guitar Competition. After that, he went to Siena, Italy, to study further at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana there for four years, having Oscar Ghiglia as his mentor, and received the highest honors for the four consecutive times.
 
Yasuji’s concert debut was at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. in 2003, which was broadcasted live worldwide via internet. In 2005, he was invited to “Cubadisco 2005,” the international music market in Cuba, as the first Japanese classical guitarist. He even was invited to join the Cuban National Symphony (conducted by Zenaida Romeu) to play “Concierto de  Aranjuez,” which turned out to be a huge success. In 2006, Yasuji was invited to “International Guitar Festival Compensar” in Bogota, Columbia, where his solo performance was enthusiastically praised. His career was further expanded in the following year, 2007, to have solo concerts in Korea, and also in Taiwan in 2008.
 
In 2010, he was invited to play at the commemorative concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Orchesta Symphonica Nacional de Cuba, and played Piazolla’s “the Double Concerto for a Guitar and a Bandneon” with them, which was highly acclaimed. In the same year, he went on the road covering five cities in Canada organized by the Japan Foundation with the trio of his guitar, flute and violin. Also in 2010, he was invited to a guitar festival in Shanghai. His international fame has broadened further as he was again invited to Taiwan again where he played Rodrigo’s “Concierto Andaluz” and Brouwer’s “Gismontiana,” which were both very highly acclaimed.
 
Yasuji had his first CD released from Victor Entertainment in 2000. Ever since, he has had 12 CDs and 2 DVDs come out so far. His musical quest isn’t limited only in the field of classic, but covers various kinds of music expanding from Renaissance to contemporary, from solo to chamber music and concerto. His versatility has been well-proven by his collaborations with Jazz guitar players including Kazumi Watanabe and Yosuke Onuma, and with the Tokyo City Ballet. His activities beyond genres have been widely introduced by media including TV, radio and magazines.
 
His guitar mentors include Arberto Ponce, Shin-ichi Fukuda, Eduardo Fernandez, William Kanengiser, Olivier chassain, Carel Harms, Yoshihisa Nakano and Hiroshi Hagiwara. He studied solfeggio under the guidance of Junnosuke Yamada. He also studied baroque guitar, Lute and Theorbe under Eric Bellocq and chamber music under Laszlo Hadady. He recieved the 6th Hotel Okura Award, and the 18th Idemitsu Music Award.
He is originally from Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan.
 
 

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