Amos Koyama, known professionally as Koyama, is from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and to say he has enjoyed his first two semesters at Columbia College Chicago, would be an understatement.
After attending and graduating from Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter, a high school in South Hadley, MA, Koyama set his sights on college in Chicago, more specifically, Columbia. “I liked the idea of living in a city like Chicago for college and I felt like Columbia was the best school for what I wanted to pursue.”
At Columbia, Koyama has had the chance to perform an exclusive set for WCRXFM’s “Sessions @33,” which falls in line with a performing career that began at an early age. According to Koyama, “I started playing music at the age of 7 on violin. I can still remember my first recital. I think I played ‘hot cross buns.’ playing music has always been a part of my life. I do it out of joy and my love for the art form. I knew I wanted to pursue a career in music ever since I picked up the bass in freshman year of high school. I can’t really see myself doing anything else so it felt like a given to major in it. At Columbia, my homework is to play guitar. That’s pretty great.”
Sessions @33 is a relatively new series at Columbia. It was created to help support artists of all types of genres, in addition to providing resume and portfolio building experience for those behind-the-scenes. For his performance, Koyama mixed it up by performing two covers that are easily recognizable: David Bowie’s, “The Man Who Sold the World,” and The Weeknd’s 2019 chart-topping hit, “Blinding Lights.” He had this to say regarding the importance of Sessions @ 33. “It’s super important. Columbia College Chicago artists are super lucky to have this as an opportunity to perform and share their work.”
As Koyama continues to build his audience and work on his craft, he gave some insight into future plans. “My goals are to perform as much as possible. The stage is my home and the more opportunities I get to perform and share my work the better.”
Sessions @33 is a series featuring Columbia College Chicago music artists performing a 4-song set in an intimate performance space at WCRXFM, Columbia’s very own radio station. In addition to the artists getting exposure, students from various departments. Please support these fantastic up-n-coming artists, as well as the collaborative efforts of the students involved behind the scenes, by watching sessions on YouTube, as well as listening to the podcast version on either Apple or Stitcher.
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