Aya Matsuura is a Japanese musician and actress. She is associated with Hello! Project, a collective of female Japanese pop artists that contains the extremely popular female J-pop supergroup, Morning Musume, and is a prolific solo artist.
Aya Matsuura was born in Himeji, Japan on June 25, 1986. At the age of 14, in 2000, she was chosen to be a part of Hello! Project at the 4th Morning Musume & Heike Michiyo Protegee Audition. Working with Hello! Project, Aya Matsuura began what would become a long solo career. Her first released album was "First Kiss", in 2002, which sold nearly 300,000 copies. Since then, she has released an album a year, including "T.W.O.", "X3", "Matsuura Aya Best 1", and 2006's "Naked Songs". She also works frequently with other members of Hello! Project, including Yuko Nakazawa, Natsumi Abe, Rika Ishikawa, Maki Goto, Miki Fujimoto and Nochiura Natsumi. She has contributed to Hello! Project groups like Gomattou, DEF.DIVA and GAM. Her singles have placed well on the Oricon, Japan's equivalent to the Billboard music chart, and include "Dokki Doki! LOVE Mail", "THE LAST NIGHT", "GOOD BYE Natsuo", "YOUR SONG ~Seishun Sensei~", "Watarasebashi", "Zutto Suki de Ii desu ka", and "Suna wo Kamu you ni... NAMIDA".
In addition to her singing / songwriting career, Aya Matsuura has appeared in numerous commercials for Japanese brands such as Pocky, Pretz, Gogo no Kocha, Shiseido, Aoyama Trading, Suzuki Let's 4 and SEGA Puyopuyo Fever. In late 2006, Aya Matsuura appeared in the leading role of the Japanese movie "Sukeban Deka: Codename = Asamiya Saki".
As of early 2007, Aya Matsuura continues to work in the music industry and hosts multiple television and radio shows, including Utawara (a television show that she co-hosts with other Japanese stars) and "Matsuura Aya no All Night Nippon", a radio show broadcast weekly.