Biography
Amir Masoh’s journey began at the age of 3. At the time, music was a luxury to him. His earliest memories of music were of learning to pay attention to musical details from his father, who got him to replicate tunes on a banged up, battery-operated keyboard, that his dad picked up from the dumpster, as they listened to old vinyls.
Immersing himself in an eclectic range of music from classical to pop, jazz to heavy metal, he practiced the piano on borrowed hours, sneaking into the school hall whenever he could. By the time he was 14, he had learnt to play the guitar, and decided to broaden his skills into studio engineering, songwriting and producing.
His career in music started in 1995 in Singapore. He freelanced in recording studios, film and television production houses and live sound companies. His roles include as a music arranger, a composer, a live sound (FOH and Systems) engineer, a studio recording/mix engineer, a grip and gaffer, on-location sound engineer, sound designer and director of photography.
In 1996 he received the “Teens Award” and “Best Song Award”, the top prize for Yamaha Music Foundation’s annual Teens Music Festival competition. This resulted in a live performance in Japan at the festival finals in 1997 — organized by Yamaha Music Foundation, Yamaha Corporation and Nippon Broadcasting System, INC — to a crowd of thousands. He was the first, and only, non-Japanese artist at the time. For his musical excellence, he also received the “Special Teens Award”. In 1998, he had written a score for Singaporean filmmaker Leonard Yip’s award-winning short film, “Shadow of Death”, which played to international audiences. The project earned the BBC Awards, The UTV Gold Awards as well as the Cathay Gold Awards.
These achievements resulted in a contract signing with Warner Chappell as an exclusive songwriter in 1998.
From 2001 onwards, he began putting more focus as an all rounded producer, incorporating his skills as an arranger, engineer, songwriter and musician. During this time, his clientele expanded to 3 main languages across the whole of Asia; English, Mandarin (Chinese) and Malay/Bahasa. In mandarin speaking regions, he has worked with big name artists such as Hebe of SHE, Fahrenheit and Shinn. In Singapore, he changed perceptions of the local English music scene with the success of Jack and Rai and Daphne Khoo’s debut album. His work with Taufik Batisah (Singapore Idol Season 1) and Imran Ajmain went beyond Singapore’s shores and into the bigger Malaysia markets. In all, his work has earned him a string of top 10’s and number ones Asia-wide.
Not limited to just albums and singles, his work can be heard across all mediums. From radio, TV and the silver screens. Occasionally, he would work on other mediums such as musicals. He engineered the album for the hit musical, “Forbidden City”. He was also the music director for the youth charity musical “Pagoda Street”. Both musicals played to audiences in London as well as Singapore’s biggest performance venue, The Esplanade. He was also a judge for “School of Rock” organized by Singapore’s widest-circulating English-language broadsheet, The Straits Times.
Since 2007, he’s been living in many different parts of the world, observing first-hand the inner workings of the global music industry. “I got to see how everything is inter-connected and at the same, how the differences in culture and mindsets affect the developments that is shaping the music industry that we now know.”
Although his current base is in Asia, his current clientele is worldwide, spanning beyond Asia to US, London and Australia. These include major and independent labels, advertising agencies, film and television production houses as well as unsigned artists.
“I just want to make music. Period.”
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