Born: April 18 Primary Instrument: Piano
Masako Fujimoto is a brilliant pianist, composer and arranger working at the forefront of jazz music. Her natural talent as a pianist and her mature musicality as a composer have gained her international recognition and accolades. Her improvisational style has been lauded by critics as being marked by great clarity, lyricism and finesse.
Masako was born in Japan and began studying classical piano when she was 6 years old. Her passion for music grew rapidly and by the age of 15, she studied classical piano with famous professor, the late Matuyama of the Musashino Music College in Tokyo. Prior to college, Masako had studied formal piano, vocal and music theory for three years. While majoring in education during college, she continued her classical piano and music theory studies with the famous Nobuko Yamamoto, Professor at Nagoya Music College.
After many years of performing and studying classical piano performance, Masako sought out more creative opportunities. Her mentor influenced her to listen to several recordings of famous jazz pianists such as Bill Evans, Bud Powell and Keith Jarrett. She began learning jazz standards and studied jazz improvisation on her own.
During her contemporary music studies at Berklee, she gained both performance and writing skills in a wider range of music styles such as Pop, R&B, Jazz, and Classical. Ms. Fujimoto studied with Grammy nominated Joanne Brackeen, Ray Santici, who had played with John Coltrane and taught famous musicians and great pianists such as Diana Krall, and she hold her recital at Berk hall in Boston with producing by famouse Jazz pianist and composer Lazlo Gardony and Stephany Terman, Chair for performance majors. In 2011, Masako graduated with a performance major at Berklee College of Music.
Currently residing in Boston, Masako performs regularly with several internationally acclaimed bands and independent musicians and is often commissioned to compose and arrange for high profile projects. She has headlined or accompanied performancesat in Boston and NYC. As an arranger, she has worked with young well-known singers in M.A. As a composer, she has been commissioned for important CD recording projects including for a record company/Hill top records. In addition to her prolific activity as an instrumentalist/composer/arranger which has catapulted her to fame, Masako has gained knowledge of audio engineering to achieve more independence when striving for well engineered renditions of her live performance and productions.
