VI.BE

Shoko Igarashi was born in Yamagata Prefecture, Japan. An accomplished tenor saxophonist, she is also a versatile flautist and plays alto and soprano saxophone fluently. She has already made her mark as both an arranger and a composer. Shoko grew up surrounded by dreamlike landscapes of abundant nature in the snowy countryside of Tsuruoka, a mysterious and surreal region renowned for producing the best quality rice in Japan, where she says, “the water and the air feel the purest," and where mountains and shrines overflow with ancient mysticism.

After beginning her musical career in Tokyo, she attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree of music. She then relocated to Brooklyn, New York where she began regularly performing live alongside innumerable talented jazz musicians. In 2018, she moved to Brussels, Belgium and founded the group Maniac Maison with her partner, pianist Casimir Liberski, and guitarist Lucien Fraipont.

Her first official solo Album "Simple Sentences" is released from Tigersushi records (Paris)

Shoko Igarashi has written and compiled a series of colourful electronic songs, joining diverse influences such as Sly & the Family Stone, Earth Wind & Fire, Japanese City-Pop, ‘70s jazz fusion and the anime film music that she grew up learning to play. She seamlessly combines these different elements into her own unique sound and makes it feel astonishingly natural.