Kyoko Kitamura is a vocal improviser and composer residing in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Background

Kitamura is a Japanese-American musician born in

and raised partially in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

. She studied piano at the Juilliard School of Music pre-college division but later chose to become a TV reporter with

Fuji Television JOCX-DTV (channel 8), branded as and colloquially known as CX, is a Japanese television station based in Odaiba today is a large artificial island in Tokyo Bay, Japan, across the Rainbow Bridge from central Tokyo. Odaiba was initially b ...

, a national network in Japan and was based in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

for many years as their French news correspondent. After quitting her job, she moved back to NYC in 1997, worked as a freelance magazine writer for a few years before getting back into music after a hiatus of close to 15 years. Unusual for a vocalist, she honed craft as a sideperson-vocalist with NYC musicians such as bassists

Reggie Workman Reginald "Reggie" Workman (born June 26, 1937 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American avant-garde jazz and hard bop double bassist, recognized for his work with both John Coltrane and Art Blakey. Career Early in his career, Workman wo ...

and William Parker, saxophonist

Steve Coleman Steve Coleman (born September 20, 1956) is an American saxophonist, composer, bandleader and music theorist. In 2014, he was named a MacArthur Fellow. Early life Steve Coleman was born and grew up in South Side, Chicago. He started playing al ...

, cornet player

Taylor Ho Bynum Taylor Ho Bynum (born 1975) is a musician, composer, educator and writer. His main instrument is the cornet, but he also plays numerous similar instruments, including flugelhorn and trumpet. Early life Bynum was born in BaltimoreWilmoth, Charli" ...

, among others. Since 2010, she has been working with saxophonist and composer

Anthony Braxton Anthony Braxton (born June 4, 1945) is an American experimental composer, educator, music theorist, improviser and multi-instrumentalist who is best known for playing saxophones, particularly the alto. Braxton grew up on the South Side of Chica ...

as one of his vocalists and as the director of communication for his organization, th
Tri-Centric Foundation
Mostly recently, she appears on these Anthony Braxton albums: ''Trillium J'', ''12 Duets (DCWM) 2012'', ''Trillium E'', and his Syntactical Ghost Trance Choir live performance release (all fro
New Braxton House Records
.

Discography

In 2018, she released her second leader album ''Protean Labyrinth'' (self-release on Bandcamp, 2018) featuring Ingrid Laubrock, Ken Filiano and Dayeon Seok. She is also the co-leader of another 2018 release ''Geometry of Caves'' (

Relative Pitch Records Relative Pitch Records is an American independent record label specializing in free jazz and avant-garde jazz, free improvisation, and experimental music. Run by Kevin Reilly, Relative Pitch has been ranked among the top jazz record labels in ' ...

2018) featuring Kitamura, Joe Morris, Tomeka Reid and Taylor Ho Bynum. Discography as a sideperson includes

's ''Trillium J'' (New Braxton House 2016),''Trillium E'' (New Braxton House 2011) and ''12 Duets (DCWM) 2012'' (New Braxton House 2014), and Taylor Ho Bynum's ''Madeleine Dreams'' (Firehouse 12 Records 2009) among others.

Have performed and/or recorded with

Laura Andel Orchestra,

, Taylor Ho Bynum, Steve Coleman, Yayoi Ikawa, Mark Lamb, Art Lande, Russ Lossing, William Parker, Jim Staley, Reggie Workman, and others.

References

Kyoko Kitamura
at

All About Jazz ''All About Jazz'' is a website established by Michael Ricci in 1995. A volunteer staff publishes news, album reviews, articles, videos, and listings of concerts and other events having to do with jazz. Ricci maintains a related site, ''Jazz Near ...

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kitamura, Kyoko American musicians of Japanese descent American women musicians of Japanese descent Living people Musicians from Tokyo Musicians from New York City Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American women