Mantaro Jo was born in Chiba prefecture. He studied in Germany after graduating from the Faculty of Music at the Tokyo University of the Arts. A graduate of the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin, he received a scholarship from the Munich Philharmonic to attend their Orchestra Academy. His principal teachers include Shu Yoshida, Yoshio Nagashima, Esko Laine, Mathias Weber, and Sławomir Grenda. He has been a member of the New Japan Philharmonic since 2011 and is currently the Double Bass Vorspieler. He was a member of the PMF Academy in 2003. This year he returns to serve as a PMF Section Leader.