Takahiro Izumikawa

Born in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan on October 18, 1986. Izumikawa started working as professional musician in Osaka for 4 years while attending an university. After graduating, he went to New York, and played with various musicians and in particular, was inspired by Bill Mays, who is a regular pianist for Phil Woods.

In 2011, he went back to Tokyo and formed a label and an 8-piece jazz group called "King Columbia," and released two albums that are being sold at major music chains such as Tower Records and Village Vanguard. The band was invited to play at the most prestige rock festival in Japan, Fuji Rock Festival in 2011.

Izumikawa established himself as a first-call piano player and the band member for not only major jazz musicians but also artists of pop music (J-POP) and participated in numerous national tours and recording sessions. In 2010 to 2014, he was a regular piano player with the May Inoue Band (Universal Music debut guitarist), and the group appeared on a program called "El Mundo" on the national TV channel NHK for one week in 2014. He was endorsed by KAWAI, a major piano maker, and recorded a solo album of jazz standards and went on a national tour at public music halls throughout Japan in 2013 and 2014. TSUTAYA, a nation-wide retail music store, featured Izumikawa as a guest artist to record an album for their theme-based series of music in 2014. In the recent years, he has also spent his time on composing, programing, and arranging, and was commissioned to write tunes for TV commercials and arranged for an orchestra.

The group Izumikawa was a member of was one of the two acts invited as guests to National Cherry Blossom Festival in 2014. He resides in New York City and mainly work with Timothy Bloom (two-time Grammy winner singer songwriter), Wayna Wondwossen (singer for Stevie Wonder), Takuya Kuroda(Blue Note debuted trumpeter) and other local artists.

His own band (Keys and Drums DUO) has been started since 2016 with Marshall York (drummer for Grammy winner pianist Robert Glasper).

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