Haruko Nara

Haruko is a native of Japan.  She grew up in a small town 30 miles west of Tokyo and began her musical studies in classical piano at age 5.  She would listen to classical music, pop music, along with Japanese traditional music called “Utai” that her grandfather sang at home.  When Haruko was in elementary school, her piano teacher Nihoko Takagi noticed her exceptional musical talent and encouraged her to pursue a career in music.  Haruko’s first encounter with jazz was at home listening intensively to recordings by jazz masters such as John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and Miles Davis.  She would imitate what she heard on piano and write original compositions as well.  She started performing in jazz groups in Tokyo soon after.

Haruko's love and curiosity for music brought her to New York.  The very first day she arrived in Manhattan, she was convinced that this is the place for her.  While going to jazz clubs night after night, she began to major in classical piano performance and studied with Zenon Fishbein at The Manhattan School of Music.  After earning a Bachelor of Music, Haruko went on to study classical composition at The Juilliard School.  She also studied jazz piano privately with Kenny Barron, Richie Beirach, Joanne Brackeen, Barry Harris, Bruce Barth and Norman Simmons, jazz composition with David Berger, and Japanese traditional music (Koto, Japanese harp) with Fusako Yoshida.

While in college, Haruko began playing jazz professionally in New York.  She performed with a singer and dancer, Atsuko Yume and trumpeter Don Cherry at “The Women’s Jazz Festival” at the Lincoln Center in 1983.  A music producer named Cobi Narita discovered Haruko’s talent and asked her perform at “A Jazz Festival: An Asian/Asian-American Perspective” in New York in 1984.  On the occasion, she played with Clifford Jordan, Kiyoto Fujiwara, and Billy Hart.  That was Haruko’s New York debut as a bandleader.  One of her first steady club engagements was a duo appearance every weekend at One Fifth, where she had abundant opportunities to work with seasoned players such as Buster Williams, Rufus Lead, and Major Holley, as well as the younger generations of talented musicians at the time including Peter Washington, Lonnie Plaxico, Kenny Davis, and Ira Coleman.

Over the years, Haruko Nara has played with numerous eminent musicians.  She has shared the stage with Frank Wess, Kenny Garrett, Billy Higgins, Ben Riley, Eddie Henderson, Michael Max Flemming, Carl Allen, Dennis Irwin, Michael Formanek, Nana Vasconselos, Ralph Moor, Yoshiaki Masuo, Dennis Charles, Tommy Campbell, John Blake, Kevin Eubanks, Jamil Nasser, Buddy Williams, William Parker, Yoshio Chin Suzuki, and Wallace Roney.  She has also played as a member of Kenny Garrett, Major Holley, Billy Hart, and Kiyoto Fujiwara’s group.  She has accompanied singers such as Shoko Amano and Marion Cowings as well.

In 1990, Haruko released her debut album My Favorite Things (Pony Canyon) featuring Kenny Garrett.  She also recorded MD, a CD dedicated to Miles Davis, with Ken Wessel, Lonnie Plaxico, and Steven Moss. Moreover, she has played on three of Lonnie Plaxico's CDs as well Doug White, Shoko Amano, and Kiyoto Fujiwara’ albums.

Haruko has performed at various venues and concerts including the Blue Note, Bradley's, Birdland, The Knitting Factory, the Kitano, Lenox Launge, Body & Soul (Tokyo, Japan), Dug (Tokyo), Carnegie Recital Hall, Whitney Museum, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, St. Peter's Church, Cathedral of St. John The Divine, Suntory Hall (Tokyo), Musica Oggi (Milan, Italy), Istituto Giapponese di Cultura (Rome, Italy), Sport and Cultural Festival for Peace (Pyongyang, North Korea), Puerto Rico National Conservatory (Puerto Rico), University of Trinidad (Port of Spain, Trinidad), Japan Fest (Copan Ruinas, Honduras), and The University of Panama (Panama City, Panama).

While performing in the late 80s, Haruko became interested in the teaching and learning of music.  To that end, she began to pursue a doctorate degree in Music Education from Teachers College, Columbia University.  In 1992, as a graduate student, Haruko began teaching piano, synthesizer and music education research courses at Columbia University.  After receiving her doctorate in 1999, Haruko was appointed as an adjunct assistant professor at Columbia where she continues to teach.  She has also taught at the New School and Pennsylvania State University.  Her research interests are improvisation, jazz, jazz pedagogy, and African music.  Haruko’s publications include Jazz Phrasing Book (Zen-On) and Phraseology (UMI).


In 2005, Haruko started studying African drumming at Djoniba Drum and Dance Centre in New York after regularly appearing at the Kitano with her trio, Paul Beaudry and Quincy Davis for a few years.  She has since studied drumming with Djoniba Mouflet, Vado Diomande, Mangue Sylla, Laurent Camara, and Moussa Traore.  She also traveled to Bamako, Mali  5 times where she conducted research on West African music and studied drumming under Sega Cisse, the former Mali National Ballet drum master, Manbe Cissoko, Mache Traore and Drissa Kone.  She has also participated in workshops conducted by Famoudou Konate and Mamady Keita, two Guinean drum legends.  Haruko started playing djembe and dundun drums for African dance classes in New York in 2006.  Since then, her compositions, which incorporate various traditional African rhythms, began reflecting even stronger African influences than her earlier work.  Haruko utilizes African percussions in her group and her composition.  Currently she plays both piano and djembe in concerts.

As a cultural ambassador, Haruko Nara has been engaged in numerous programs abroad.  In 1993, she was invited by the Japan Foundation to give a solo concert in Rome.  The following year, she was invited to Pyongyang, North Korea to play music as a member of Yuma & Culture Exchange, along with Muhammad Ali and American pro-wrestlers for “The Sport and Cultural Festival for Peace.”  She also performed at Japanese Festivals in the United States.  In 2007, by the invitation of Japan Foundation and the Japanese Embassies, Haruko traveled to Trinidad and Tobago, Puerto Rico, Honduras, and Panama to give concerts and workshops along with the singer Gino Sitson.  She taught at the University of Panama and the Puerto Rico National Conservatory, and she gave lectures to both music students and the general public about jazz, improvisation, African music as well as Japanese music.  In 2008, Haruko went on the same culture exchange mission as the previous year to El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Dominican Republic with her trio, Gino Sitson and Yoshiaki Masuo.  She performed and taught at concert halls and educational institutions including Dominican Republic National Theater where she received an enthusiastic response.

Ad Lib Magazine praised Haruko Nara’s extraordinary keen musical sensitivity and grace.  The jazz critic Niranjan Jhaveri wrote that he has never heard any jazz pianist of Haruko’s generation convey as profound a sense of emotion as she does.  Yozo Iwanami, music writer and former editor-in-chief of Swing Journal magazine, nominated Haruko’s CD My Favorite Things as one of the best recordings in Jazz, and he raved about her great talent as a pianist and a composer.  Bungei Shunju, a prestigious Japanese magazine, nominated Haruko Nara as one of the top 100 Japanese professionals who are great assets to the country as well as taking leadership abroad.

Haruko’s album The Drum Tree was released in 2013.  The CD includes eight of her original compositions, which features Frank Wess, Gino Sitson, Djoniba Mouflet, Moussa Traore, Paul Beaudry, Lonnie Plaxico, and Quincy Davis.  In 2018 she recorded with a group Near & Far and their CD Across the Water was released.