Yoko is from Yokohama, Japan, and just graduated from Berklee College of Music in 2020.
In 2017, she graduated from the Kunitachi College of Music in Japan. She studied jazz piano with Mr. Makoto Ozone and Mr. Satoru Shionoya at the same college.
In 2014, She joined the Grammy camp in Los Angeles as a scholarship student and performed at the various Jazz Festivals in Japan as her own band.
In 2015 and 2016, two of her compositions were performed at Tokyo Jazz Festival by the JFC all-star big band directed by Makoto. She also joined this band as a piano player, and performed on the main stage of the Tokyo Jazz Festival in 2016.
In 2017, she entered the Berklee College of Music as a scholarship student, and she has received some honored awards from school every year.
(2018 : Jazz Performance Award,
2019 : Duke Ellington Award (The highest award from Jazz Composition department),
2020 : Tadd Dameron Award)
She started performing piano in Jazz Clubs since she was a student of Kunitachi College, but also she writes a lot of music for various kinds of instrumentation which are from duo to Big Band.
At Berklee, she’s been studying jazz composition with Mr. Greg Hopkins, Mr. Bob Pilkington and Mr. Billy Childs, and studying Performance with Mr. Dave Santoro, Mr. Jim Odgren, Mr. Tim Ray and Ms. Terri Lyne Carrington. She’s performed with Roxy Coss, Keyon Harrold, Melissa Aldana, Barry Stephenson and Terri Lyne Carrington.
Her composition, "Progress," was selected for the honorable mention in 2019 ASCAP Foundation Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award, and another composition, "Cat Tricks," was selected for the honorable mention in 2019 JEN Young Composer’s Showcase.
Also, She won the DOWNBEAT 43rd annual student music award in the category of “Original Composition for Large Ensemble” in 2020 with her latest composition "Hmmmm."
Also, she has released the first album "The Moment" as Yoko&Yuki Duo Project and some special guests in early 2020, and it's getting great reviews from people. This project is led by her and the bassist Yuki Kodama who she met in Berklee, and it's been running since 2018.