A highly skilled pianist comes to New York, starts meeting people as she builds her band and brand and the next thing you know, an ensemble is born that knows just how to deliver her original tunes. Smoking instrumental music that is jazz but goes beyond jazz in many ways. Often impressionistic and visual, this is a smoking debut from a pro that just planted a recording flag quite firmly.
Yoko Yates, born in Sapporo City, Japan, is a composer, pianist, and an educator. She began her keyboard study at age four and was exposed to a variety of music by her music-loving family. Though classically trained, her keen interest in improvisation led her take innovative approaches and to develop the style of composition she is known for today.
Yoko is an integrated musician with a unique voice as a composer. Her compositions reflect her multi-faceted artistry; her experience with a variety of musical genres and the visual arts; her love of nature and storytelling. She has composed music for films, media, and literary events. Her music is heard on Reuter Business Weekly and in several international award-winning documentaries including “Mothers’ Way, Daughters’ Choice” directed by Kyoko Gasha, who describes her musical contributions as going beyond what words can express. She wrote pieces for “9.11, My Journey of Jasmine” by author, Akiko Endo, who says her compositions are born of a wonderful sensitivity that conveys emotion at a deep level.
She was awarded a Cultural Merit Scholarship from Sapporo City and a Professional Music Scholarship from Berklee College of Music in Boston. Graduating from Berklee with a B.A. in music, summa cum laude, she went on to receive a Master’s in Education from Lesley University in Cambridge (MA). She continued her doctoral study in music education at Columbia University, Teachers College (NY), where she was awarded a teaching assistantship and scholarship. She has been a member of the piano faculty at Greenwich House Music School in Manhattan and Brooklyn Conservatory of Music since 1996. At Brooklyn Conservatory she served as a piano chair from 2011 - 2013.
All through her schooling and teaching years, she has maintained a performing career, playing in both traditional concert settings as well as in clubs and special events in Boston, New York, and Japan. In April 2022, her first leader album “ Mystic Life” was released on SteepleChase Records. The album contains her 10 original compositions played in quintet by the notable musicians: Jamie Baum (Flt./A.Flt.), Sam Sadigursky (A. Sax./Cl./B.Cl.), Aryeh Kobrinsky (Bs), Jeff Hirshfield (Ds.) and herself (Pf). In September 2025, her second leader album "Eternal Moments" recorded by the same quintet is scheduled to be released on her own label, Banka Records.
Awards
Cultural Merit Scholarship from Sapporo City, Japan.
Professional Music Scholarship from Berklee College of Music in Boston.
Minority Scholarship and teaching assistantship from Columbia University, Teachers College in New York.
Wrote soundtrack for the documentary film “Mothers’ Way, Daughters’ Choice,” which received "Audience Award and Best Cultural Documentary Award" in New York International Independent Film Festival (2010) and "Front Page Award" from Newswomen's Club in New York (2010).
On her second album, Japanese-born, New York City-based pianist and composer Yoko Yates, ever the genial story-teller, presents ten of her elegant original compositions. Based on feelings and emotions she has experienced while living and working in and around the New York area, they encompass a wide range of phenomena--from outer space and a serpentine river to seasonal changes and even the penultimate day of a flower. Yates leads her quintet along an avenue whose bedrock is ...
Pianist-composer Yoko Yates expands on her unique musical concept on her Eternal Moments, her stunning sophomore album, set for a September 19 release on Banka Records. Retaining the quintet from her 2022 debut Mystic Life—flutist Jamie Baum, multi-reedist Sam Sadigursky, bassist Aryeh Kobrinsky, and drummer Jeff Hirshfield—it also includes 10 original post-bop jazz compositions that explore Yates’s enmeshed fascinations with visual imagery, autobiography, and the natural world. Eternal Moments is thus a natural, entirely organic follow-up to the much-lauded Mystic ... read more
"Yoko Yates’ Eternal Moments builds on the poetic sensibilities of her earlier projects, yet finds her voice growing more assured and expressive in both composition and ensemble interplay. Pianist and composer Yates frames the music with an understated touch, allowing Jamie Baum’s flute and Sam Sadigursky’s reeds to weave gracefully through the melodies. Aryeh Kobrinsky on bass and Jeff Hirshfield on drums lend subtle momentum and grounding to the tunes. Compared with her past work, this album reveals a deeper layering of textures and a more confident use of space, balancing moments of quiet contemplation with passages that open into wide, almost cinematic vistas. The production speaks to Yates’s continuing evolution, offering music that is thoughtful, lyrical, and quietly powerful." --D. GLENN DANIELS, TheJazzPage.com, October 2025
"Yoko Yates’ Eternal Moments builds on the poetic sensibilities of her earlier projects, yet finds her voice growing more assured and expressive in both composition and ensemble interplay. Pianist and composer Yates frames the music with an understated touch, allowing Jamie Baum’s flute and Sam Sadigursky’s reeds to weave gracefully through the melodies. Aryeh Kobrinsky on bass and Jeff Hirshfield on drums lend subtle momentum and grounding to the tunes. Compared with her past work, this album reveals a deeper layering of textures and a more confident use of space, balancing moments of quiet contemplation with passages that open into wide, almost cinematic vistas. The production speaks to Yates’s continuing evolution, offering music that is thoughtful, lyrical, and quietly powerful." --D. GLENN DANIELS, TheJazzPage.com, October 2025
"Pianist and composer Yoko Yates has crafted a beautiful and highly melodic album with Eternal Moments, using a trio of Yoko-san on piano, Jeff Hirshfeld on drums and Aryeh on bass—then adding Jamie Baum on flutes and Sam Sadigurski on clarinet, bass clarinet and alto saxophone. Her use of these instruments to provide coloration makes me think of her compositions as tone poems. Originally from northern Japan, her early influences of classical, rock and other genres clearly influence her compositions. Beautiful!" --DR. BRAD STONE, host "the creative Source" radio show on www.soulandjazz.com, and curator in "Women in Jazz" magazine, December 2025
“Instrumental music at its most visual, emotional, and transcendent. A perfect listen for fans of contemplative modern jazz. In essence, Eternal Moments is considered a significant and beautiful work that solidifies Yoko Yates’ talent as a composer and bandleader, offering a deeply personal yet universally resonant musical journey." --JazzbluesEU, December 8,2025
"New York pianist Yoko Yates delivers a pastoral chamber jazz suite in 10 parts with the same excellent quintet she unveiled on her 2022 album, Mystic Life. Yates' writing and arranging integrate pairs of winds with pulsing rhythm section; soloists Jamie Baum and Sam Sadigursky soar. Many tracks offer rhythmic intricacy and surprise...
Overall, a strong album, especially when agitation and engagement triumph over enchantment." --PAUL de BARROS, Downbeat Magazine, January 2026
"Pianist/composer Yoko Yates comes off like a musical story teller on this album of originals interpreted by Jamie Baum/fl-as, Sam Sadigursky/cl-bcl-as, Aryeh Kobrinsky/b and Jeff Hirshfield/dr. She brings in the woodwinds like watercolors on a canvas with fluffy flute work on 'Outer Space-MyriadStars!' and warm woody clarinet for 'The Flower Before Its Last Day.' Her piano is rich and suggestive on 'Winter Calls' with Kobrinsky’s bass guiding through the stars of “Winding River”. The horns give dots and dashes to 'Song Of The Wild' and wistful dreams during 'Collage Of Life.' Musical pictures at an exhibition." --GEORGE HARRIS, JazzWeekly.com, October 30, 2025
"On her second album, Japanese-born, New York City-based pianist and composer Yoko Yates, ever the genial story-teller, presents ten of her elegant original compositions. Based on feelings and emotions she has experienced while living and working in and around the New York area, they encompass a wide range of phenomena—from outer space and a serpentine river to seasonal changes and even the penultimate day of a flower.
Yates leads her quintet along an avenue whose bedrock is for the most part smooth and rarefied, a low-pressure excursion with enhanced symmetry thanks to the mindfulness of flutist Jamie Baum and woodwind specialist Sam Sadigursky who plays clarinet, bass clarinet and alto sax. Baum and Sadigursky performed the same duties on Yates' debut album, Mystic Nights (Steeplechase Records, 2022), as did bassist Aryeh Kobrinsky and drummer Jeff Hirshfield.
Yates has a keen ear for handsome melodies, which she leaves mainly in the capable hands of Sadigursky—who plays bass clarinet on most numbers—and Baum. Yates solos sparely, preferring to add rhythmic counterpoint in support of the front-liners. That works well, as Sadigursky and Baum are proficient ad libbers with abundant creativity and charm. Sadigursky is especially adept at using the bass clarinet's upper register to press home his improvisational perspective.
As noted, Yates' compositions tend to be light and lyrical, lending themselves well to the quintet's flute and woodwind makeup. Kobrinsky and Hirshfield play their parts well, providing a rhythmic bedrock that is free of bombast or intrusion. Yates is the glue that holds the enterprise together, both compositionally and musically, comping with assurance behind every solo and stepping to the front gracefully whenever needed (as, for example, on 'The Flower Before Its Last Day,' 'Winding River' or 'Winter Calls'). This is lovely music, splendidly performed by Yates and her teammates who are always in lock-step and on the same seductive page. If pleasant and beautiful jazz is your preference, Eternal Moments was conceived and arranged with you in mind." --JACK BOWERS, AllAboutJazz.com, September 6, 2025
"A highly skilled pianist comes to New York, starts meeting people as she builds her band and brand and the next thing you know, an ensemble is born that knows just how to deliver her original tunes. Smoking instrumental music that is jazz but goes beyond jazz in many ways. Often impressionistic and visual, this is a smoking debut from a pro that just planted a recording flag quite firmly." --CHRIS SPECTOR Editor and Publisher Midwest Record
"Yates hadn’t originally intended for her debut recording to serve as a personal journey into memories of childhood, or as a treatise on how early fantasies shaped her music as an adult. And she can’t really identify what triggered these memories years later, or impelled her to ensnare them in song. But Mystic Life turned out to encompass all those topics and more, wrapped up in this blithely enchanting, superbly crafted album. --NEIL TESSER host, music critic and author (Lifetime Achievement Award in Jazz Journalism)
"Yoko’s music is imaginative, fun, beautiful, and natural. It incorporates music from a variety of genres and has emotional depth that hits my heart. Her unique style appeals not only jazz enthusiasts but to a broader audience. Each time I listen to “Mystic Life” it reveals more and inspires my own creativity. It is wonderfully crafted. Thank you, Yoko for creating such beauty for us." --DAVE GAHAN Lead singer Depeche Mode (Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, 2020)
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