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About Hiro Honshuku

Hiroaki Honshuku was first introduced to jazz in 1985 while teaching music at the US Naval Base in Yokosuka, Japan. Two years later, Hiro came to the Boston area. He started at Berklee College of music as a scholarship student in January 1987. By the fall, he was also accepted to the New England Conservatory as a scholarship graduate student. He has studied with George Russell, Dave Holland, Bob Moses, George Garzone, Matthew Marvuglio, and Thomas McKinley. Hiro was chosen leader of the 1990 New England Conservatory Honors Jazz Quintet, which performed throughout the New England region.

In May 1990, Hiro graduated simultaneously from Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory. He received Summa Cum Laude for his Diploma of Music at Berklee as a performance major. He received Academic Honors and Distinction in Performance for his Master of Music at the New England Conservatory as a Jazz Composition major. Besides being very active playing in New York and the New England region jazz clubs, he has been busy teaching in the Boston area. Since graduation, he has taught multiple levels of jazz theory and directed small and large jazz ensembles at New England Conservatory, jazz flute improvisation for grad study at Longy School of Music and computer science at The New England Institute of Art.

Hiro has been an assistant director for George Russell at the New England Conservatory since 1987 until Russell’s recent retirement. He was also invited as an assistant and a flutist as well as a digital audio technician for Russell’s Living Time Orchestra from 1997. Hiro has been deeply inspired by Russell’s Lydian Chromatic Concept for Tonal Organization, which now characterizes Hiro’s writing style using Tonal Gravity without any traditional II-V-I resolution.

Hiro has also played with Mike Stern, Dave Liebman, Mick Goodrick, Dave Weckl, Tiger Okoshi, George Garzone, Maria Schneider, Bob Moses, and Tom McKinley. Hiro has recorded more than 25 CDs for various artists.  He also recorded 5 leader albums, which are available at Amazon.com, CDBaby, and iTunes Store.  The complete discography is available at A-NO-NE web site.

While Hiro was into performing Avant-garde improvisational music using his electric gear in Berlin, Germany between 1990 and 1991, he was introduced to the Brazilian music by Paulo Maragucci, a well-known Rio de Janeiro composer/multi instrumentist who was studying at the New England Conservatory.  Since he joined the Brazilian group, Manga-Rosa led by Sergio Brandão in 1992, not only has his compositional style added Brazilian rhythms, Hiro has been very active performing and recording in the Brazilian music scene including Jequere led by José Pienasola, Gustavo Assis-Brasil Group, Teresa Inês Group, Gilson Schachnik Group, Alfredo Cardim, João Marcos, and many others.  Hiro has performed for Teresa Inês Rio de Janeiro shows in 2000 – 2001.

In the jazz scene, Hiro has been a long-time regular member of Jazz Composers Alliance Orchestra and Power Jazz Unit.

The nature of the A-NO-NE Band varies according to the performance. This concept was started by Hiro at the end of 1987 when he realized he wanted to be a strong composer. He made a list of good musicians around the Boston area, and tried to organize different size bands and different types of music for several concerts. The A-NO-NE Band can be a small Jazz group, Avant-garde, Funk Fusion and even a Big Band. All of the selections of the A-NO-NE Band are written by Hiro. Because of the success in four A-NO-NE Big Band concerts, he was invited to Paris as a guest conductor in June 1990, and his later formed big band “Boston Blazing Jazz Orchestra” was invited to the Jazz Festival in Kyoto ’94 for a week long performance hosted by Geila Zilkha.

Hiro still keeps his classical music activity. Among those, he was invited for a recital at Paroisse de la Trinité, Paris, France, where he performed his own compositions dedicated to Messiaen.

Besides Hiro is busy performing and teaching, Hiro also runs a small project studio for digital audio editing and MIDI sequencing as well as on site recording using state of the art tools.  To help his own audio work on Macintosh, he has programmed a few applications, which are freely available at Apple web site under Dashboard Widget.

2 thoughts on “About Hiro Honshuku

  • Klaus-Werner Pusch

    Hi Hiro,

    great to meet you in George Russell’s Book page 100 with your composition Monk’s Monku.

    I would love to exchange more musical wisdom and experience. I am a trumpet player studying with Bill Hardman in the late 70ies and early 80ties.

    Please, come back to me as I want more information about George Russells great theory.

    ortsiva@gmail.com

    Skype: puschklaus1

    originally from Germany but living in Cape Town South Africa

    Best regards

    Klaus-Werner Pusch

    Reply
    • madflute

      Hello Klaus! Nice meeting you! I will send you email. Meanwhile you might want to edit your comment so bot won’t scoop your email address to spam you.
      -Hiro

      Reply

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