Masa Matsuura was born in Tokyo in March 1978. After majoring in singing in the Performance Department of the Faculty of Music at Toho Gakuen University she proceeded to the graduate school of the same university to specialise in composition and subsequently undertake the

ensemble diploma course, majoring in piano. She then continued her studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, pursuing a course in piano accompaniment under the direction of Jean Koerner.

She has been awarded prizes in the Suita Music Competition (composition category), the Sōgakudō Japanese Song Competition (composition category) and the Japan Mozart Music Competition (piano category). She has studied composition under Masahiro Ishijima, Hitomi Kaneko, Keiko Harada, piano under Kiko Imaizumi, Kaoru Ōsaki, Hideyo Ozawa, Miyoko Goldberg Yamane and Akiko Hoshino, sightreading and piano accompaniment under Jean Koerner, Hisako Imamura and Satoshi Sandō, and singing under Konomi Nagoya.

Her compositions include Requiem Dedicated to the Victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake (2012), Cytokinesis and Tōya for saxophone ensemble and many other works that have been performed in Japan, Europe and the United States. In 2018 she composed a work for four-part

choir to commemorate the 1,080th anniversary of the foundation of the Naritasan Shinshōji temple in Chiba Prefecture. In March 2023 she released two publications, Forty Studies for Saxophone for Improving Score-Reading and Sight-Reading Abilities and a supplement to this publication

entitled Forty Studies for Two Saxophones (published by Arimusique). Both these publications have now been reissued, the first sets having sold out in less than a month.

As an ensemble pianist Masa Matsuura has performed extensively with many leading musicians in Japan and abroad and has also been engaged as the official pianist at international saxophone competitions and at the Hamamatsu International Wind Academy.

Together with the saxophonist Sumichika Arimura she has released two CDs, Romance and Träumerei, on the Fontec label, the former of which received a special commendation from the Rekōdo Geijutsu magazine.

She has taught as a part-time lecturer at Tokyo University of the Arts and Ueda Women’s Junior College and currently serves as lecturer at Senzoku Gakuen College of Music.