Biography:

A creative and subtle jazz and ballad vocalist, Aniya puts a lot of heart and feeling into the lyrics that she sings. Her warm and quietly expressive voice is heard regularly in the Los Angeles area.

Born and raised in Tokyo, Aniya started playing organ when she was four, and at six began extensive classical piano lessons. “I listened to classical music in addition to Latin music which my father liked and Japanese pop music. I also studied clarinet in junior high and high school. I took a piano tuning course at the Kunitachi College Of Music. My father was a craftsman and, growing up in that environment, I felt that I needed some kind of skill. At least by tuning pianos, I would be around music. But while in school, I started performing in clubs and I realized that that was much more fun!”

When she was 18, Aniya started working in Tokyo nightclubs as a singer-pianist, mostly performing pop music. After she graduated from college, she had an opportunity to perform at a Japanese nightclub in San Francisco for a few months. After returning home, she soon returned to California, moving to Los Angeles where she studied at the Dick Grove School Of Music. Sue Raney was one of the vocal teachers and Aniya was greatly moved by her singing which inspired her to sing jazz.

Aniya picked up important experience as a member of the Tak Shindo Swing Band for several years, building up her repertoire and enjoying singing in front of a band. “I remember the first time I performed in front of 700 people with the Tak Shindo Swing Band. I was nervous, but only until I started singing. Once I started, I felt a huge wave of energy from the audience and 20 musicians playing behind me. It felt so good.”

She spent several years performing at a countless number of piano bars in the Japanese community of Los Angeles while studying jazz. Aniya met a lot of top musicians while singing at jam sessions and she started getting a lot of offers to work at jazz clubs. She appeared regularly at Chadney’s, Lunaria and Vagilio’s and also at the KLON Jazz Caravan and the Pasadena Summer Jazz Festival.

In 2007, Aniya made her first CD, In Other Words, a set of eight standards and love songs that she sings with the brilliant rhythm section of pianist Alan Broadbent, bassist Dave Carpenter and drummer Peter Erskine. Whether it is “Fly Me To The Moon” (which includes the rarely-heard verse), “The Look Of Love,” or a touching “Everytime We Say Goodbye,” Aniya not only does justice to the material but makes the songs sound like her own.

These days, Aniya performs several times a week at Bobby London, a popular jazz bar in Koreatown, using such sidemen as guitarists Doug MacDonald and Hide Tokunaga, pianist Gaea Schell and bassist Tony Dumas as her accompanists. She has also worked with guitarist Ron Anthony and drummers Ralph Penland and Roy McCurdy. In addition, Aniya is an educator, teaching young vocalists the lessons that she has learned from performing jazz in public.

“I have a very intimate and relaxing style,” says Aniya. “and I love to perform in intimate environments and small clubs.” A subtle improviser with a beautiful voice, Aniya is today one of the top jazz singers residing in the Los Angeles area, and she is clearly heading for greater success.