Biography

Guitar / Early days
In the 70’s, Japan was in so called “guitar boom”. Everybody was playing the guitar, so did Osamu. He took up the instrument at the age of 12. He acquired basic playing techniques through Tokyo Ongaku Academy distant-learning system that was very popular at that time in Japan. It was basically a combination of study guide booklets and the recordings of the music in the guide by the tutors. Although it was not as good as a real teacher, it worked well enough for Osamu to decide to carry on playing. Osamu played in a guitar ensemble at high school. At college he continued ensemble playing in a mandolin and guitar orchestra and studied guitar with Juichi Sato.

Intermission
Osamu joined a finechemical company as a research scientist in 1984. He found that it was very difficult to make enough time for practicing while working full-time. Further, at this stage of his career in science, Osamu felt urgent need to improve his professional knowledge and skills to step-up. Since then until Osamu finally settles down in UK the priority was always on work and he played the guitar only occasionally.

Cancer
Osamu was diagnosed with cancer of oesophagus in July 1997. Osamu was operated twice in October 1997 and November 1998 in Japan, initially to remove the entire oesophagus and the tumour and then in the following year to remove suspected metastasis at a lymph node. Cancer of oesophagus is one of the hardest cancer to treat and the average chance of 5-year survival is 20-40%.  Fortunately Osamu survived. However, the aftereffect of the operations compromised his health considerably. The experience during the cancer treatment changed Osamu’s mindset. Facing the real chance of death made him come back to music.

Guitar / Coming back
Osamu started playing guitar again in 1999 and came back to the habit of regular daily practice as he gradually recovered from the surgery.  He studied with Gerald Garcia and recently set up this website from which the recordings of his performance, including Garcia’s compositions, can be downloaded. Osamu’s current interest is focused on baroque music, lute works of Silvius Leopold Weiss in particular. His latest project involves transcription of the Weiss pieces for 8-string guitar.

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