About Me
Japanese-born New York City-based jazz composer/arranger Asuka Kakitani is fast becoming a notable presence on the modern jazz big band scene. After she was awarded the BMI Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize in 2006, Asuka founded her 18-piece band, the Asuka Kakitani Jazz Orchestra. Since then they have been performing Asuka’s music in venues in the New York City area such as Bowery Poetry Club, St. Peter’s Church, the Gershwin Hotel, and regularly at the Tea Lounge as a part of the “Size Matters” large ensemble series.
Asuka’s compositions are often inspired by art, literature, and nature. These works capture this inspiration in orchestrational color and melodic development via extended through-composed forms. Asuka attempts to balance her composed music with a palette for her incredibly creative soloists to express themselves. AKJO also performs some of her interpretations of traditional Japanese children’s music, which she “re-composes” by utilizing many of their simple motives for thematic development filtered through the language of her distinct harmonic and melodic concept.
Asuka received the prestigious Manny Albam Commission to compose a new work for large jazz ensemble, which was premiered at the 2007 BMI annual showcase concert in New York City. She was awarded her first Composer Assistance Grant from the American Music Center in 2009 for her premiere of the suite “Re-imagining of My Childhood” and her second in 2010 for her premiere of the suite “Homage to Rothko: Rapturous and Melancholy Colors.” AKJO recorded their debut album in June, 2011 in Brooklyn, New York.