Eri Chichibu

Biography
Articles

Eri is an award-winning Japanese composer/arranger/pianist/keyboardist/bandleader. She graduated Berklee College of Music in Boston, dual majored in Jazz Composition and Film Scoring, and minored in Video Game Scoring. Before diving into music field, she has studied education and psychology at Tohoku University in Japan. Her unique sounding music may be created because of this unique background. After she started her path as a musician, her works have recognized by many organization such as ASCAP, ISJAC, JEN, and more. (e.g. 2020 ISJAC/USF Owen Prize, 2020 & 2019 ASCAP Foundation Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award.) While she writes and performs her jazz compositions as a bandleader, she also makes music for media (TV, radio, video games, theater, and more). As a bandleader, she wrote a jazz suite “Sound Map ←2020→ Sendai” for 7-piece jazz ensemble and field recording in her hometown, Sendai, Japan, in 2020. Other than being a composer, she has also invited to the 13th academic conference of National Foundation of Brief Therapy to talk about the relationship between jazz music and psychotherapy. Her 1st album "Crossing Reality" was released on September 7th, 2022.

Eri Chichibu: Discovering the Path from Psychology to Jazz and Crossing Reality

by Jane Kozhevnikova
September 7, 2022

Sometimes people decide to pursue a career in music early in their lives, but many artists go with a “normal" career until their passion for music wins. That happened to Eri Chichibu, a Japanese composer, arranger and pianist who started as a psychology major in Japan. She holds a bachelor's degree in Jazz Composition and Film Scoring and a minor in Video Game Scoring from Berklee College of Music. She won the 2020 and 2019 ASCAP Foundation Herb Alpert Young ...