Born in Tokyo in 1968. He studied composition with Masayuki Nagatomi, Teruyuki Noda, and Jo Kondo at Tokyo University of the Arts and its graduate school, and composition with Gérard Grisey and conducting with Jean-Sébastien Bérault at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris. He graduated from the composition department of the Conservatoire with a Premier Prix à l'unanimité (unanimous first prize) and the Ebersold Prize from the Conservatoire Alumni Association. He has received various awards both domestically and internationally in both composition and conducting, including the Idemitsu Music Award and the Akutagawa Award for Music Composition, and has been commissioned numerous works by organizations such as Ensemble InterContemporain, the French Ministry of Culture, and the Suntory Music Foundation. His works have been presented at events such as ISCM (Yokohama), Zagreb Music Biennale, MaerzMusik (Berlin), Manca Festival (Nice), Music From Japan (New York), Avanti! Summer Music Festival (Finland/Porvoo), Daegu International Music Festival (Korea), Takefu International Music Festival (Japan), and Présences (Paris), and have been widely performed worldwide by renowned orchestras and ensembles including the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Berlin Symphony Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble 2e2m, Ensemble InterContemporain, Ensemble Recherche, Ensemble Court-Circuit, Juilliard Percussion Ensemble, and Tokyo Sinfonietta, as well as by excellent soloists such as Claude Delangle (Sax.), Barry Webb (Trb.), and Cédric Tiberghien (Pn.).

As a conductor, he has been involved in the premieres of numerous new Japanese works and the introduction of contemporary foreign works, collaborating with groups such as Ensemble Contemporary α and Ensemble Vivo, with the total number exceeding 120 pieces to date. Among these, the Japanese premieres of major works such as Grisey's Vortex Temporum I-III and Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil, and Reich's Tehillim are particularly noteworthy. He has also frequently appeared as a guest conductor for amateur orchestras, contributing to the development of young contemporary music performers.

His major works include:

• Orchestral works: Astoration, Gravitational Waves
• Chamber orchestral works: Megalithic Waves, Intersecting Light, Tableau on Re, Fa, La, Convergence
• Chamber music works: West, or Song of an Autumn Evening (BIS-CD, Editions Henry Lemoine), Gallop, Fall, Doubled Ancient Song
• Vocal works: Two Poems by Ryokan (BIS-CD), 12-voice Chorale by Novalis
• Works for Japanese instruments: Sound of Keichitsu

He co-founded the Japan-France Contemporary Music Association with conductor Kanako Abe and served as its first secretary-general. In 2013, a large-scale chamber music solo exhibition was held at Opera City Recital Hall, and the CD "Songs of Prehistory - Masakazu Natsuda Works" and other recordings were released by Zipangu Products.