KYOKO KURODA : PROFILE (Kyoko Kuroda , musician , pianist) |
She was born at November 20, 1957 in Tokyo, Japan. Started piano when she was a child, and studied under a teacher of classic music until 17. At the university she was fascinated by traditional Noh play and actually learned its traditional singing and dancing. Those experiences are still alive in her style of music activity. She began playing jazz at 24. From 1982 to 1984 she was given lessons by Aki Takase, pianist. On 1986 she formed her own quartet named BAHR, which was a starting point as a professional jazz player. And 1987, she gathered many kinds of players, including jazz players, singers, actors, actress and a turntable player Yoshihide Otomo, to have a workshop named ORT, in which non-category music was aimed using Brecht Songs, Carla Bley's tunes, and her own things, as materials to arrange in new style. ORT workshop was closed in 1990. After ORT, she began playing in solo, duo, and trio. Especially through solo playing, she developed her own style beyond jazz, using a lot of kinds instruments like piano, accordion, synthesizer, voice, and other many kind of things. She had joined a lot of sessions with domestic and foreign improvisers, including Lauren Newton(voice improviser), John Zorn(saxophonist), Kim Dae Hwan(Korean percussionist), Yosuke Yamashita(pianist), Tetsu Saitoh(bass player), Koichi Makigami(voice improviser) etc. She has been a member of some groups of Akira Sakata(saxophonist), Sachi Hayasaka(saxophonist) and Shun Sakai(singer). Also she plays as a musical director of the troupe named ''Trunk Theater'' and ''Reading and Music'' project about ten years. Sometimes she is asked to compose and play for the silent movies. This year she played music for the German silent movie “Unheimliche Geschichten”(Richard Oswald, 1919) with Masataka Hirano (saxophonist) at Goethe-Institut in Tokyo. Also she lectured jazz for people at the community center in her hometown from 1997 to 2001. At present she has many concerts and plans under the name of ORTOPERA ENSEMBLE, which keeps the spirit of early ORT workshop. In 2000 she directed and arranged a big piece ''Musik Teatre : The Way of Kurt Weill'' as a tribute work to his 100 years old's celebration at jazz festival in Yokohama. Recently she has been playing with Keisuke Ohta, violinist, and Keiki Midorikawa, cellist. This new group is named KYOKO KURODA TRIO. Three of them are equally positioned in this trio. Now she tries to find new possibility of improvisation with those talented strings players. |
＜Festival＞ JAPAN Yokohama Jazz Promnade Kohoku Jazz Festival Chiba Jazz Festival Yamagata Jazz Fesival Nan-reku Jazz Festival etc. ABROAD Nuernberg Ost - West Jazz Fest (1992 / with Sachi Hayasaka's group ) Moers Jazz Fest (1992 / with Sachi Hayasaka's group ) Leverkusen Jazz Fest (1994 / with Sachi Hayasaka's group ) Leipzig Jazz Fest (1997 / Special Program “The World of Yosuke Yamashita”) Duesseldorf and Paris Concerts (2003 / with Akira Sakata's group). Kurt Weill Fest in Dessau (1995, 1998 / as a music director of Trunk Theater) etc. |
＜Discs＞ leader 「Now's The Time Workshop」 omnibus CD, as ORT , 1990 「Something Keeps Me Alive」 solo, 1991 （ liner note by Prof. Bert Noglik） 「Do you like B ? 」 Kyoko Kuroda Trio, 2005 「Horutonoki 」 Kyoko Kuroda Trio, 2008 as a member Sachi Hayasaka : 「Milagros」 1995 Tetsu Saitoh : 「Stone Out」 1995 （with 4 female Koto players and 2 bassplayers） Tetsu Saitoh : 「Ausencias」 1997 （ plays A.Piazzolla, featuring Ryota Komatsu） Shun Sakai : 「A dog at 4th street」 2000 V.A.: 「Improvised Music from Japan」omnibus, 10-CDs box set, 2001, （with Kazuhisa Uchihashi, guitarist, recorded in 1997） Akira Sakata : 「Akatombo (Dragon Fly)」 2004 Sachi Hayasaka : 「beat beat jazzbeat ! 」2004 Noki Kita : 「Viohazard 」2006 Akira Sakata mii : 「Yume」,2007 Akira Sakata : 「Omusubi 」 2008 Naoki Kita: : 「Sora ni Suhareshi kokoro」, 2008 Carmen Maki : 「Persona」 2009 etc. |
＜Web＞ http://www.ortopera.com/ http://www.japanimprov.com/kkuroda/index.html (in English / note : information until the middle of 1990s) |
(Last up date／January 2010) |