Yasutaka Yoshioka profile
Guitarist, composer, Yasutaka Yoshioka has performed throughout Japan and in Europe. He is an exciting and sensitive musician who performs in the new direction of music.
Yasutaka Yoshioka grew up in Tokyo listening to Jazz, Rock, the Classics, and Japanese traditional music. At age three he started to play the piano. At age thirteen he started to play the guitar. After high school he attended two music schools in Japan, completing six years of training in three years. In 1983 he earned a scholarship to study at Berklee College of Music in Boston. There he earned the Jim Hall Award for outstanding performance. In 1986 he graduated first in his class from Berklee College of Music in jazz composition and arranging.
He returned to Tokyo and has worked as a freelance guitarist for many musicians for their concerts and recordings, and also as a leader of his own group. He has released 2 albums, "The Island (1998)" "Journey of my heart" (2003). As a composer he has written for TV (NHK) and other performing jazz groups. As an educator he has released instructive videos, "Post bebop style improvisation for guitar" (1994) "Playing J. S. Bach with linear shifting technique"(1996). He also teaches at Tokyo Music & Media Arts College of Shobi, Studio Lung, specializing in jazz guitar, theory and workshops.