The Café Royal Cultural Foundation NYC has awarded a 2023 Winter Music Grant to Migiwa Miyajima for her upcoming album, “Exploring Discovering.”

New York-based Japanese composer, producer, pianist, and bandleader Migiwa “Miggy” Miyajima creates large-scale works manifesting her distinct life experiences. Aiming to improve the opportunity gap between different social groups through her music and music-related projects, she is a change-maker as well as a musician, director, and supervisor. Birdland Jazz Club says, “Miyajima’s music reflects her journey as a musician and humanitarian.”

Formerly an IT engineer and editor-in-chief of a travel magazine in Japan, Miyajima trusted the power of music and became a full-time musician at the age of 30. In 2009, Miyajima joined the Grammy-winning Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, the successor to the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra, as a Japanese representative. She also acted as associate producer for two of their Grammy-nominated albums, Forever Lasting-Live in Tokyo and Over Time: Music of Bob Brookmeyer. With the orchestra, she also produced eight Japan tours and conducted annual workshops in Japan for eight years that were attended by over a thousand players of all ages. The in-person lessons taught by legendary musicians helped uproot the misconception in Japan that only Americans can create and/or play jazz. This had a huge impact that spread throughout the Japanese music community. 

After surviving the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, Miyajima received a Japanese government grant and a Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Fellowship and relocated to the U.S. In 2018, the Miggy Augmented Orchestra released its ArtistShare debut album Colorful to convey the message that “The world is so cool because everyone is different and comes together to create harmony.” In March 2021, Miyajima released a book with accompanying music entitled Your Future Story. This was the first product of her year-long “Unbreakable Hope and Resilience” project, based on the real stories of survivors and volunteers of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. 

Integrating musical elements from Japan with the harmonies and rhythms of modern jazz, Miyajima’s original compositions evoke a deep appreciation of our shared humanity and the beauty of nature. She is particularly skilled at combining numerous sounds and creating striking and sophisticated effects. Showcasing the boundless gifts of her featured musicians in her signature ensemble music, she seeks to highlight the unique colors that all human beings contribute to society.

In addition to her work with the Miggy Augmented Orchestra, in 2019, she founded the Samurai Jazz Project with Kyo Kasumi that incorporates the Japanese traditional sword performance, Tate, with jazz to demonstrate the importance of diversity and inclusion. And most recently, Miyajima created KYMN, a new genre-crossing acoustic vocal quartet that aims to break through walls of genre and style to deliver encouraging messages in an accessible way.

Miyajima’s works have been performed in various places and venues such as Birdland Jazz Club, Jazz at Lincoln Center,  Lincoln Center, and TimesSquare. Miyajima has also been invited to perform for the Japanese Ambassador’s official residence in New York and the International Haiku Contest held at the United Nations International School. On July 30, 2021, the Asian American Art Alliance and Lincoln Center co-produced a concert and Miyajima performed as a representative of East-Asian musicians. Miyajima’s work has been recognized through awards and grants such as the 2019 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, the 2020 NYC Women’s Fund for Media, Music and Theatre, and the 2021 Creative Engagement Program of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

Exploring Discovering is composer and arranger Migiwa Miyajima’s first album for saxophone ensemble, and will consist of 3 compositions for sax quartet (soprano sax, alto sax, tenor sax, and baritone sax), along with 2 compositions featuring a guest vocalist, and 2 duet compositions for two saxes along with one arrangement of Stevie Wonder’s Ribbon in the Sky. The legendary Jay Messina will be the recording and mixing engineer for this album; Messina has worked with musical stars such as Miles Davis, John Lennon, and Benny Golson. The album will be recorded in NYC in the spring 2023 and is expected to be completed in the winter of the same year.

Best known for her work as a big band jazz composer, Miyajima found a link between the zen-minimalist artistry of her home country of Japan and the beauty of small ensembles during the Covid-19 lockdown, when her activities as a big band leader were put on hold. After she composed Reconciliation Suite, a 12-minute mini-suite for a string quartet and flute, on commission for the string quartet ETHEL, her passion for small ensemble writing bloomed. She quickly finished five compositions and arrangements for saxophone quartet which will be included in this album.

Through Exploring Discovering, Miyajima aims to communicate the importance of diversity in New York City, where the mixture of cultures is always resulting in new and interesting arts. This is especially important to her, since she moved to New York City in search of fundamental freedoms after experiencing discrimination in Japan as a woman leader in the jazz world. The music in this album includes phrases, harmonies, and grooves from jazz ensemble music mixed with elements from classical music, soul music, and the music of her native Japan. She has listened to all these musical styles without categorization since childhood, and as a composer, she finds mixture to come naturally. It is this seamless blend of disparate musical styles that makes this album unique.

Please visit Migiwa’s Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and website for more information.