Meg Okura is a virtuoso violinist and innovative improviser, blending contemporary jazz with electronics. In this project she takes her classical background and makes spectacular jazz adaptations to known classical pieces.
After receiving Masters degree from the Julliard School, Meg left the classical violin scene and started pursuing more contemporary music, performing and recording with some of the biggest names in music including Mary J. Blige, David Bowie, Michael Brecker, Philip Glass, Jesse Harris, Lee Konitz, Lou Reed and Steve Swallow.

Meg began playing the violin at four in Ome, a small town near Tokyo, Japan. By six, she was already playing the piano and organ for the local church and her elementary school, while receiving intensive musical training at Toho School, one of the most prestigious schools in Asia. By her early teens, she became one of the top students at the Toho School and was the youngest winner of the Tokyo Cultural Halls Young Musician debut audition in 1990. At seventeen, Meg was chosen to be the concertmaster of the Asian Youth Orchestra to tour all over Asia, leading one hundred finest young musician chosen from nine Asian countries. The following year, Meg was invited back as a soloist to tour with the orchestra conducted by Lukas Foss.

She then moved to the US, making her solo debut at the Kennedy Center with the late Alexander Schneider and the New York String Orchestra. Meg was also chosen to be the concertmaster and soloist with the Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra in California, and performed with Elmer Bernstein, Billy Childs, Jerry Goldsmith, Dave Grusin, Herbie Hancock, Shierley Horn, and Quincy Jones, Diana Krall and Diane Reeves.
Meg studied the violin with Masao Kawasaki, chamber music with Samuel Sanders, Seymour Lipkin and Robert Mann at the Julliard School where she was the recipient of the Gluck Fellowship, the concertmaster of the orchestra, and the teaching assistant for the Film Scoring and Music Production classes. While still at Julliard, Meg recorded three solo albums for the Life Music in Japan, which lead to extensive touring throughout Japan. She was also commissioned to write the symphonic work "Fanfare" premiered by the New York Symphonic Ensemble in 1998.

Since her graduation in 1999, Meg moved to Brooklyn, and has since worked with Sarah Brightman, Eric Friedlander, Heidi Grant-Murphy, Darryl Hall, Susie Ibarra, ZiggyMarley, Jeremy Pelt, Rufus Wainwright, Elliot Sharp, and Steve Sacks. She now enjoys recording and performing with Phraohs Daughter, Sam Newsome and Global Unity, Septeto Roberto Rodriguez, the Sirius String Quartet, and Vince Giordano and the nighthawks.

 

 

Personnel:
Meg Okura - Violin,                     Eric Niceberg - Piano
Thomas Bramerie - Bass,             Eliot Zigmund - Drums

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