CHIHIRO YAMANAKA, Universal Classics & Jazz recording artist, is one of the most exciting jazz pianists and composers of her generation, and the leader of the CHIHIRO YAMANAKA TRIO.

Chihiro’s music pivots between her strikingly original compositions and her unique arrangements of standards, in which she accomplishes the impressive feat of introducing the element of surprise into some of the most famous songs in the standard jazz repertoire.  

Chihiro Yamanaka’s current CD, Reminiscence (Universal/Decca/EmArcy), is her second U.S. release, following her 2011 U.S. major label debut, Forever Begins (Universal/Decca/EmArcy) and several acclaimed Universal/Verve releases in Japan.   Reminiscence has already reached the #1 spot on the Japanese jazz charts and won the “Nissan Presents Jazz Japan Award” for “Album of the Year.”

Awaiting release in the U.S. are two new CDs that have been introduced in Japan in the span of six months:  Chihiro's tribute to the Beatles, Because (Universal/Verve) and After Hours 2 (Universal/Verve).  Because is a groundbreaking disc that features some of the most creative reworkings of Beatles classics ever recorded.  Along with the title track, "Because" (from Abbey Road), Chihiro transforms great songs such as "Yesterday" and "Michelle" into glittering displays of her musical imagination.   After Hours 2 is the sequel to the very popular After Hours (Universal/Verve), her intimately expressive collection of great jazz standards.

2012 was a milestone year for Chihiro, a year that delivered the Chihiro Yamanaka Trio's first appearance in the Mary Lou Williams Women In Jazz Festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, where Chihiro amazed a sellout audience as part of a stellar festival line-up that included Grammy winner Terri Lyne Carrington's Mosaic Project and host Dee Dee Bridgewater.  Chihiro's performance on the festival was featured in a nationwide radio broadcast on National Public Radio's "JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater." 

Chihiro and Universal recently released a DVD, Live In New York, that was videotaped at Iridium Jazz Club in New York City.  The DVD gives Chihiro’s fans the opportunity to experience not only the great sound of her band, but also the spectacular visual presentation seen by everyone who has witnessed the fireball of energy and virtuosity on display at a live Chihiro concert appearance.

Based in New York City, the most remarkable of Chihiro’s successes have been in Japan, with sold-out concert tours and with each of her many CDs topping the Japanese jazz charts.  Chihiro also performs regularly in Europe, especially in Italy, including the 2011 Umbria Jazz Festival where her trio opened for Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Marcus Miller in “Tribute To Miles.”  Her other recent concerts in Italy have included the Blue Note Milano and Jazz Club Torino, and she has brought her trio to Paris to perform at Duc des Lombards and Sunset-Sunside. 

Chihiro's recent U.S. concerts have included Yoshi's Jazz Club San Francisco, New York’s Iridium Jazz Club, Dizzy's at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York, the Blue Note New York, Regattabar in Boston, An die Musik in Baltimore and Chris' Jazz Café in Philadelphia, and she was featured in a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall.

In addition to her prolific work in jazz, Chihiro is an accomplished classical pianist whose recent concerts have included a performance of Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue with the Tokyo Symphony.

The Chihiro Yamanaka Trio has featured some of the finest talent in jazz, including bassists Ben Williams, Larry Grenadier, Bob Hurst and Yoshi Waki, and drummers Bernard “Pretty” Purdie, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Kendrick Scott, Jeff Ballard and John Davis. In addition to her work as a bandleader, her in-demand status has led to concert appearances with Herbie Hancock, George Benson, Nancy Wilson, Clark Terry, Gary Burton, George Russell, Terri Lyne Carrington, the DIVA Jazz Orchestra and many more.

Chihiro’s 2009 CD, After Hours, won the “Japan Gold Disc Award” as the best-selling jazz disc of the year, and her 2007 CD, Abyss, won “Album of The Year” in the Swing Journal Magazine Readers’ Poll, an auspicious start to a career that first drew international attention with Chihiro's 2005 "Best New Artist" award in Swing Journal.  Jazz Life Magazine called Chihiro “one of the greatest jazz talents in decades,” and jazz legend George Russell has hailed her as “a very gifted and imaginative musician.” 

Chihiro’s impact on the international jazz scene was foreshadowed by the successes she had while still in college, first at the Royal Academy of Music in England and then at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she won DownBeat’s Outstanding Performance Award and was honored by the International Association of Jazz Educators with her victory in the prestigious “Sisters In Jazz” competition in 2000.

In JazzTimes Magazine, Giovanni Russonello wrote a glowing review of Chihiro's set at the 2011 Umbria Jazz Festival opening for Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Marcus Miller.  "The biggest surprise of the night (other than, maybe, seeing Miller lead a band that included Shorter and Hancock) was Chihiro Yamanaka.  Opening for the Tribute to Miles band with her trio, the Japanese pianist tore into two originals at the top of her set, sounding a bit like Mulgrew Miller on classically trained steroids, and with a progressive bent.  When she announced 'Take Five,' the crowd let out a gleeful 'ahh'—but they weren’t ready for the voracious re-harmonization, full of upward-creeping basslines and chromatic descents, or her mid-song interpolation of 'In Your Own Sweet Way,' retrofitted in 5/4 time.  Right and left, jaws were dropping."