Ai Kuwabara (born September 21, 1991) is a modern

jazz pianist Jazz piano is a collective term for the techniques pianists use when playing jazz. The piano has been an integral part of the jazz idiom since its inception, in both solo and ensemble settings. Its role is multifaceted due largely to the instru ...

from Chiba,

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. She produces music in collaboration with bassist Yusuke Morita in a band called the ai kuwabara trio project. Her first album, ''from here to there'' debuted nationally in Japan via EWE Records in November 2012, and their second album ''THE SIXTH SENSE,'' was released in April 2013. The trio performed in the Sapporo City Jazz Festival 2013 in July and the 12th Tokyo Jazz Festival in September.

Biography

Kuwabara was born on , the youngest of three girls. Older sisters Yu and Mako are also musical, and it was Mako who introduced Ai to her current musical partner Yusuke Morita, who was her classmate at the Tokyo College of Music. Kuwabara graduated from the Music Department at Senzoku Gakuen High School as a jazz piano major in . She studied piano under Yuki Arimasa, Yoko Yamashita, and Kazune Zaima. Kuwabara has won many awards, including gold medals at the All-Japan Yamaha Electone Contest, for both the lower elementary division and the upper elementary division. Kuwabara has performed at the

UNICEF UNICEF (), originally called the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund in full, now officially United Nations Children's Fund, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing Humanitarianism, humanitarian and Devel ...

Charity Concert and International Junior Original Concert. She was featured in ''AERA'' magazine as a “" (i.e., a

child prodigy A child prodigy is defined in psychology research literature as a person under the age of ten who produces meaningful output in some domain at the level of an adult expert. The term is also applied more broadly to young people who are extraor ...

with respect to the

Yamaha Yamaha may refer to: * Yamaha Corporation, a Japanese company with a wide range of products and services, established in 1887. The company is the largest shareholder of Yamaha Motor Company (below). ** Yamaha Music Foundation, an organization estab ...

Electone Electone is the trademark used for electronic organs produced by Yamaha Corporation, Yamaha. With the exception of the top end performance models, most Electones are based on the design of the Electric organ#Spinet organs (1949–), spinet electro ...

). In the middle of junior high school, Kuwabara switched to playing the piano. Kuwabara is tall.

Genre

The ai kuwabara trio project's jazz genre is notably hard to pin down. Sean Smith, writer for the Japan Times and jazz blogger, writes that her second album blends "contemporary jazz with elements of rock and fusion sounds," though he later states that some tracks are clearly modern or contemporary jazz, "with some almost prog-rock like synths in place." Kuwabara herself states that, "I don't feel that I'm consciously playing jazz as such. Without wanting to be disrespectful to the tradition of the genre, that's not really what I'm aiming for, but that's just how my music gets categorized."

Discography

The ai kuwabara trio project's first album ''from here to there'' was initially self-produced, and only later picked up by East Works Entertainment to be re-released in November 2012. ''THE SIXTH SENSE,'' their second album (2013), was inspired by Kuwabara's interest in and study of psychology and cognitive science. "A few times I've been asked whether I've used my sixth sense to create this music," said Kuwabara in an interview with ''

Japan Times ''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc.. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo. History ''The Japan Times'' was launched by ...

'' writer Sean Smith. "But it wasn't about that, the album was more of a desire to make some music that reflected the world of the sixth sense and intuition."

References

External links

Official Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kuwabara, Ai Living people Japanese jazz pianists Japanese women pianists Women jazz pianists 1991 births 21st-century Japanese women musicians 21st-century pianists 21st-century women pianists