Miki Yamanaka

Miki Yamanaka (山中みき) (born 1990) is a Japanese jazz musician currently living in New York City.

Miki Yamanaka lived in Kyoto until she was 10, when she moved to Kobe. She became interested in jazz while playing in her junior high school big band. She moved to New York in 2012 and took a compositional residency at the Kennedy Center in 2015. In 2020, duing the COVID-19 pandemic, she recorded the album Stairway to the Stars in her living room with Mark Turner and Orlando le Fleming. For her first gig after the pandemic, Yamanaka wore a kimono outfit to honor her mother; since then she has dressed in one every time she plays.

Discography

 * Miki (2018, Cellar Live)
 * Human Dust Suite (2020, Outside In Music)
 * Stairway to the Stars (2021, Outside In Music)
 * Shades of Rainbow (2023, Cellar Music)