Jonathan Katz
piano | French horn | composer | arranger

New York native Jonathan studied French horn with Paul Ingraham at Yale University and jazz piano and composition with Bill Dobbins at the Eastman School of Music. After studying Japanese at Sophia University on a fellowship from Yale, he moved to Tokyo in 1991. Since then, Jonathan has recorded three critically acclaimed CDs as leader of his own trio in addition to working as pianist in the bands of jazz greats such as the late Ray Brown, Lew Tabackin, Joe Lee Wilson and Eddie Henderson. Jonathanfs musicianship and diversity have led to concert and session work in other genres. He has performed and recorded with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Nagoya Philharmonic Pops and Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestras under the baton of Bob Sakuma, and played on recordings and concerts for enka star Itsuki Hiroshi. He is also musical director/pianist/hornist of the jazz world music group CANDELA, and has contributed compositions and arrangements to its albums. Jonathan's duo with CANDELA's leader, shakuhachi innovator Bruce Huebner has also toured Japan and Europe, and CANDELA has toured North America twice, first at the Toronto Downtown Jazz Festival and Joe's Pub in New York (June 2003), and again in 2004 to play at the Blue Note and record their second CD “RISE ABOVE.” Jonathan is also co-leader of the jazz quartet New York-Tokyo Connection (NYTC), which has toured and recorded in the US and Japan. Jonathanfs arrangements of Japanese traditional music and childrenfs songs have garnered acclaim and his big band arrangements are also starting to make a buzz in the US jazz education scene. He recently started his own 17-piece ensemble, The Tokyo Big Band.