Born in Tokyo in 1994, Yuya Okamoto had his first cello lessons at the age of six. In 2009, he was awarded the ‘Diploma of Merit’ at the Gaspar Cassado International Competition in Tokyo. He studied at the Faculty of Music of Tokyo University of the Arts (Geidai) under Nobuko Yamazaki and later at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich under Wen-Sinn Yang. He has taken part in masterclasses given by, among others, Wolfgang Boettcher, Natalia Gutman, and Jens Peter Maintz. He won First Prize in the Music Competition of Japan in 2011 and received ‘Honorable Mention’ at the Witold Lutosławski International Cello Competition in 2015. He has performed as a soloist with many Japanese ensembles, including the Ensemble of Tokyo, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra.

Instrument : Paolo Antonio Testore (1746)