Shota Nakama
Producer
Shota Nakama, born and raised in Okinawa, Japan, is a Boston-based music producer/arranger and the head of “soundtrec,” a live music production company. During his elementary years, Shota started taking classical piano lessons, and at 15, heavily influenced by the band “Deep Purple,” he started playing guitar. Choosing not to attend high school, he received certification of completion at the age of 16 and then moved to the US at the age of 18. After graduating from Pierce College in Lakewood, Washington, he moved to Massachusetts, where he completed a bachelor's degree in film score composition at Berklee College of Music and a master's degree in classical guitar performance at the Boston Conservatory.
Shota has been involved in the music production for the internationally acclaimed video game series Final Fantasy, as well as hit anime series such as "The Rising of the Shield Hero" and "Made in Abyss". He was in charge of orchestral score production and recording supervision for the 2018 album “Triumphant Heart” by legendary guitarist Jason Becker.
His self-produced live project, Video Game Orchestra (VGO), combines his personal style with video game music. Receiving worldwide popularity, the production has toured globally in places like the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Japan, China, Malaysia, Thailand, and Mexico. In March 2018, he produced an official Final Fantasy XV concert performed by VGO at PAX East, which drew 75,000 people; in August 2018, he produced an official Sonic the Hedgehog concert at ChinaJoy in Shanghai, which drew 300,000 people; and in October 2019, VGO headlined for the Brazil Game Show, an event with 350,000 attendees in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Shota was the musical director for SEGA's Sonic the Hedgehog 30th Anniversary Concert, released in June 2021. In August of the same year, he became the first Japanese person to produce an online concert for MARVEL. In November, he produced the North American premiere of the official "My Hero Academia” concert. Currently, Shota is on tour producing Sonic Symphony.
