Kensuke Ohira studied organ at the Tokyo University of Arts. In the autumn of 2010 he subsequently entered the Würzburg University of Music with the support of a DAAD scholarship and the Japanese Ministry of Culture. His organ teachers include Christoph Bossert, Masaaki Suzuki, Hiroko Asai, and Rie Hiroe. Ohira has also studied choral conducting with Jörg Straube as well as piano with Alexander Schimpf. As a conductor, Ohira was the founder and director of the Würzburg Bach Cantata Club, which was active from 2010 to 2015. He remains active as a choral conductor, and between 2015 and 2017 served as the musical assistant to Kay Johannsen, the director of music at the Stiftskirche in Stuttgart. From 2017 to 2018 he filled in as the Kantor at the Evangelischen Kirchengemeinde in Stuttgart-Botnang. In the fall of 2018 Ohira will return to his position as organist at Stuttgart’s Stiftskirche. During this time he has continued to pursue his organ studies with Bernhard Haas at the Munich University of Music and Theatre.
Kensuke Ohira commands a broad repertoire that takes in works from the early Baroque to the most recent contemporary music and includes a number of premieres. He has acquired a reputation for interpretive insight and mastery of organ registrations in church and concert work alike. In particular, he has demonstrated an outstanding facility for adapting to a wide variety of organs and acoustical situations.
Winning the ION International Organ Competition’s Johann Pachelbel Prize has done much to boost Kensuke Ohira’s international career, and he often appears at concert series and festivals such as the Dresden International Organ Festival (held at the Frauenkirche), the Orgelsommer (Freiburg Monastery), the Sunday Recital series at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, and the Saison Musicale d’Orgue at the Cathédrale Fréjus in France. Ohira has appeared as soloist with the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra as well as the Geidai Philharmonia, with whom he gave the first Japanese performance of the Concerto for Organ and Orchestra by T. Escaich. Ohira is also a member of the Muromachi Ensemble. Forthcoming concerts in the coming years include appearances in Germany and abroad on the most famous organs as well as performances with orchestras.
