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Chie Imaizumi |
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A native of Japan, composer/arranger/conductor Chie Imaizumi makes her first appearance at the Vail Jazz Festival. Far from a stranger to the stage, Chie started playing the electric organ in her native Saitama, Japan at the age of four. Chie went on to win the Yamaha Electone Competition for outstanding performance on the electric organ several years in a row. At 18, Chie began her intensive study of jazz in Japan, while changing her primary musical focus to the piano, and graduated top of her class. In 2001 Chie entered The Berklee School of Music and began to shift her focus from performing to composing. Her extraordinary talents were soon recognized by the professors at Berklee, where she won the Herb Pomeroy award for Jazz Composition in 2003. Upon graduating from Berklee, Chie continued composing and conducting, while also touring in the United States, Europe and Japan. Her composition "Adversity" won second place in the "Jazz" category in the 2008 International Songwriting Competition and Down Beat Critics Poll recognized her as a "Rising Star Composer." Her first CD release “Unfailing Kindness” on Capri Records made 10 consecutive weeks on the CMJ Jazz Top-40 Chart and her latest CD "A Time of New Beginnings" also on Capri Records will be released this summer. The Nationally Syndicated Radio Program “Listen Here!” Named Chie as “the Greatest Women of the Jazz Future.” She has served as copyist and/or assistant to the legendary producer Mr. Teo Macero. Chie has been a Guest Artist in Residence for the Denver School of the Arts, where she was recently named "The Rocky Mountain Jazz Artist of the Year." Chie has recently relocated to Los Angeles, California. |