“[Joe Lovano, Robin Eubanks] and I quickly zeroed in on Asuka’s ‘Dance 1’. It stood out for its elegant orchestration, rhythmic vitality and command of jazz vocabulary.”
-Dan Morgenstern (jazz historian, author, former editor of DownBeat, Director of the Institute of Jazz at Rutgers University)

“Her music is rhythmically engaging and harmonically advanced.”
-Jim McNeely (composer, arranger and pianist for Village Vanguard Orchestra, musical director of BMI Jazz Workshop)

“Laden with both compositional and improvisational sections in a way only jazz can deliver, [‘Dance 1’] is a delight for the ears.”
-John Nugent, Oregon Literary Review

Bio:

Award winning jazz composer Asuka Kakitani is fast becoming a notable presence on the big band scene. Her music has been performed internationally, including such events and venues as Fairbanks Summer Art Festival in Alaska, Merkin Concert Hall in New York, and the 2006 and 2007 IAJE Conferences. Asuka’s compositions have been recorded by Boston’s Jazz Revelation Records and by the Japanese big band, Global Jazz Orchestra, and her scores have been sought after for inclusion in college performance libraries.

Most recently, Asuka was awarded the BMI Foundation’s seventh annual Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize for 2006, adjudicated by jazz luminaries Joe Lovano, Robin Eubanks, and Dan Morgenstern. Along with the award, 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.

Asuka was born in Osaka, Japan, and started to play piano at age five. After graduating from Kyoto Conservatory, she was awarded a scholarship to attend Berklee College of Music in 2002, where she studied jazz composition with Greg Hopkins, Ted Pease and Ray Santisi. Asuka was awarded the Carla Bley Award. prior to graduating with honors in 2004, and relocated to Brooklyn, NY, where she has lived for three years. It is there that she continues to work on her compositions, saying, “I want my music to adequately express the way I see the world.”