"Born on October 9, 1958 in Tokyo, Japan, Fujii began playing piano at four and received classical training until twenty, when she turned to jazz. From 1985-87, she studied at Boston's Berklee College of Music, where her teachers included Herb Pomeroy and Bill Pierce. She returned to Japan for six years before returning to the US to study at the New England Conservatory in Boston, where her teachers included George Russell, Cecil McBee, and Paul Bley, who appeared on her debut CD Something About Water (Libra, 1996).

Since then Fujii has been an innovative bandleader and soloist, a tireless seeker of new sounds, and a prolific recording artist in ensembles ranging from duos to big bands. She has showcased her astonishing range and ability approximately 80 CDs as leader or co-leader. With each new recording or new band, she explores new aspects of her art.

Regular collaborations include her New York trio with bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Jim Black, augmented by trumpeter/husband Natsuki Tamura to form the Satoki Fujii Four; her duo with Tamura; the Satoko Fujii Quartet featuring Tatsuya Yoshida of the Japanese avant-rock duo, The Ruins; Orchestra New York, which boasts the cream of New York's contemporary avant garde improvisers, including saxophonists Ellery Eskelin and Tony Malaby, trumpeters Herb Roberton and Steven Bernstein, and trombonist Curtis Hasselbring, among others; Orchestra Tokyo, drawing on that city's best improvisers; Orchestra Nagoya; Orchestra Kobe; the co-operative trio Junk Box with Tamura and percussionist John Hollenbeck; ma-do, a quartet including Tamura on trumpet, bassist Norikatsu Koreyasu, and Akira Horikoshi; the Min-Yoh Ensemble with Tamura, trombonist Hasselbring, and accordionist Andrea Parkins; the Satoko Fujii New Trio, featuring bassist Todd Nicholson and drummer Takashi Itani― plus countless engagements and collaborations with some of the world's most important improvisers."

"Japanese trumpeter and composer Natsuki Tamura is internationally recognized for a unique musical vocabulary that blends extended techniques with jazz lyricism. This unpredictable virtuoso's seemingly limitless creativity led François Couture in All Music Guide to declare that "... we can officially say there are two Natsuki Tamuras: The one playing angular jazz-rock or ferocious free improv... and the one writing simple melodies of stunning beauty... How the two of them live in the same body and breathe through the same trumpet might remain a mystery."

Born on July 26, 1951, in Otsu, Shiga, Japan, Tamura first picked up the trumpet while performing in his junior high brass band. He began his professional music career after he graduated from high school, playing in numerous bands including the World Sharps Orchestra, Consolation, Skyliners Orchestra, New Herd Orchestra, Music Magic Orchestra, and the Satoko Fujii Ensemble, as well as in his own ensemble. He was the trumpeter for numerous national television shows in Japan from 1973-1982, including The Best Ten, Music Fair, Kirameku Rhythm and many others.

In 1986, he came to the United States to study at Berklee College of Music. He then returned to his native Japan to perform and teach at the Yamaha Popular Music School and at private trumpet studios in Tokyo and Saitama, before coming back to the US to study at New England Conservatory. He made his debut recording as a leader in 1992 on Tobifudo.

In 1997 he released the duo album How Many? with pianist Satoko Fujii, who is also his wife. It marked the beginning of an artistic collaboration that continues up to the present. The duo has made a total of five CDs over the years, including 2012's Muku. "Muku contains some truly stunning, spine-tingling music...its sheer beauty and elegance is what lingers most," wrote Dave Wayne in All About Jazz. "Fujii's orchestral technique, clear chromatic lines and "prepared piano" devices contrast effectively with Tamura's arsenal of extended techniques which he executes with a warm, vocalized tone throughout the trumpet's full range," Ted Panken said in his four-star DownBeat review. Tamura's collaborations with Fujii reveal an intense musical empathy, and have garnered wide popular and critical acclaim. Jim Santella in All About Jazz described their synergy well in his glowing review of the couple's 2006 Not Two disc, In Krakow, In November: "... the creative couple forcefully demonstrates what can happen when you let your musical ideas run free... Similarly, Tamura's mournful trumpet can fly high or low in search of his next surprise. Oftentimes, they both issue plaintive moans that sing like angels on high." Their sixth duet album is due out in 2017.

In 1998, Tamura began recording his unaccompanied solo performances. The stunning solo trumpet debut release, A Song for Jyaki earned a Writers Choice 1998 in Coda magazine, and Andy Bartlett wrote in Coda, "A fabulous set of hiccuping leaps, drones and post-bop trumpet hi-jinx. Tamura goes from growling lows to fluid, free solo runs and echoes not only Don Cherry's slurring anti-virtuosic chops but also Kenny Wheeler's piercing highwire fullness." He followed it up in 2003 with KoKoKoKe, which Jon Davis described in Exposé as "Buddhist chants from an alien planet." Grego Applegate Edwards explains that on Tamura's most recent solo album, 2013's Dragon Nat, "he pares down to focus on simple unwinding melodic material, the sound of his trumpet as a sensuous thing, a periodicity. Taken as a whole it is a kind of environmental tone poem for the moment Natsuki is in now."

2003 was a breakout year for Tamura as a bandleader, with the release of Hada Hada, featuring his free jazz-avant rock quartet with Fujii on synthesizer. Peter Marsh of the BBC had this to say about the high voltage CD: "Imagine Don Cherry woke up one morning, found he'd joined an avant goth-rock band and was booked to score an Italian horror movie. It might be an unlikely scenario, but it goes some way to describing this magnificent sprawl of a record." The quartet's 2004 Quartet release Exit was deemed "...a brilliantly executed set with a neon glow," by Dan McClenaghan in All About Jazz.

In 2005, Tamura made a 180-degree turn in his music with the debut of his all acoustic Gato Libre quartet. Focusing on the intersection of European folk music and sound abstraction, the quartet featured Fujii on accordion, Kazuhiko Tsumura on guitar, and Norikatsu Koreyasu on bass. The quartet's poetic, quietly surreal performances have been praised for their "surprisingly soft and lyrical beauty that at times borders on flat-out impressionism," by Rick Anderson in CD Hotlist. Dan McClenaghan in All About Jazz described their fourth CD, Shiro, as "intimate, something true to the simple beauty of the folk tradition...Tamura's career has largely been about dissolving musical boundaries. With Gato Libre and Shiro, the trumpeter extends his reach even deeper into the prettiest, most accessible of his endeavors." After the unexpected passing of Norikatsu in 2012, Tamura added trombonist Yasuko Kaneko to the group. The new configuration has toured Europe and Japan and released its debut recording, DuDu, in 2014. "DuDu follows the winning formula of its predecessors but, as with the other discs, eschews the formulaic. The result is another sublimely satisfying, elegant record that brims with raw excitement and a reflective nostalgia," writes Hrayr Attarian in All About Jazz. With the tragic death of guitarist Kazuhiko Tsumura, Gato Libre is now a trio. They will release a CD and LP in 2017.

In 2010, Tamura debuted a new electric quartet, First Meeting, featuring Fujii, drummer Tatsuhisa Yamamoto and electric guitarist Kelly Churko. Their first release, Cut the Rope, is "is a noisy, free, impatient album, and ranks among Fujii and Tamura's most accomplished," according to Steve Greenlee in the Boston Globe.

While fronting groups and recording as a leader, Tamura has also played an integral role in nearly all of Satoko Fujii's many projects. He is featured on all of the CDs by Satoko Fujii's various orchestras (NY, Tokyo, Nagoya, Kobe, and Berlin) and has contributed original compositions and arrangements to each of their 19 critically celebrated albums. In addition, he was a featured soloist in the Satoko Fujii Quartet, her avant-rock free jazz group that also included Tatsuya Yoshida of The Ruins. Of his work on the quartet's 2003 release Minerva, Mark Keresman wrote in JazzReview.com, "Natsuki Tamura's trumpet has some of the stark, melancholy lyricism of Miles, the bristling rage of late 60s Freddie Hubbard and a dollop of the extended techniques of Wadada Leo Smith and Lester Bowie."

Tamura is a vital member of Fujii's Min-Yo Ensemble as well. "Tamura tempers his avant-garde antics with an innate lyricism," wrote Steve Smith of Time Out New York in his review of Fujin Raijin, the intimate acoustic quartet's debut CD. He's also been singled out for his contributions to Fujii's ma do ensemble. "With Tamura's brash and glowing lines, the band incorporates mesmeric ostinatos and thrusting opuses into the grand schema," Glenn Astarita wrote in Ejazznews about their first CD, Desert Ship.

Collaborative groups also play an important role in Tamura's career. Most recently, Tamura joined Fujii and two French musicians, trumpeter Christian Pruvost and drummer Peter Orins, to form Kaze, which made their recording debut in 2011. In 2015, they released their third album, Uminari, which Jazz Magazine (France) called, "a compelling example of free jazz today. Compositions are perfectly scripted, with a well-oiled interaction and playing of beautiful power..." The collaborative trio Junk Box, which he co-founded in 2006 along with pianist Fujii and drummer John Hollenbeck, plays Fujii's "composed improvisations," graphic scores that take "ensemble dynamics to great creative heights," says Kevin Le Gendre in Jazzwise. Their music "is full of bluster and agitation that nonetheless retains moments of great melodic beauty, usually by way of concise, pertly pretty motifs that trumpeter Tamura plays in between bursts of withering roars that often dissolve into austere overtones." Their premiere CD, Fragment, appeared in 2006. As Daniel Spicer wrote of Fragment in JazzWise, "Tamura spits out gloriously rude Lester-Bowie-like snorts, lows like a herd of robotic cattle or makes like a wheezy howler monkey... Cool and clever." Glenn Astarita of All About Jazz declared it "Required listening."

Along the way, there have been one-off cooperative groups and sideman appearances for Tamura as well. In the Tank, an ad hoc quartet with Fujii and electric guitarists Takayuki Kato and Elliott Sharp, is a "triumphant electro-acoustic adventure" according to Daniel Spicer of Jazzwise. "Think AMM meets blues guitar meets 1970s Miles Davis and you get some idea of the disc's flavor: a slow-moving panorama for the ears, where sounds are systematically added, repeated, refined, and replaced in turn," wrote Nate Dorward in Cadence. Tamura and Fujii were one of two piano/trumpet duos featured on the Double Duo Crossword Puzzle CD, a live recording with Dutch trumpeter Angelo Verploegen and pianist Misha Mengelberg. Tamura has also toured and recorded with saxophonist Larry Ochs' Sax and Drumming Core, and appeared on albums by drummer Jimmy Weinstein, saxophonist Raymond McDonald, and CDs by Japanese free-jazz pioneers trumpeter Itaru Oki and pianist Masahiko Sato. In 2014 he released Nax, a duet album with bassist Alexander Frangenheim. Tamua has toured throughout Japan, North America, and Europe, appearing at major jazz festivals, concert halls, and clubs."

Trumpeter Benny Meinert is associated with the Bielefeld creative music scene and appears as part of Satoko Fujii's Bunker Ulmenwall Orchestra, joining Natsuki Tamura and Robin Stüwe in the ensemble's trumpet section. Within this large, specially assembled orchestra, his playing contributes to the brass sonorities and collective energy of Fujii's expansive orchestral writing.

Trumpeter Robin Stüwe is a member of the Bunker Ulmenwall Orchestra assembled for Satoko Fujii's 2014 project in Bielefeld, Germany, appearing alongside Natsuki Tamura and Benny Meinert in the ensemble's trumpet section. Her role in the orchestra places her within a large-scale meeting of professional musicians and younger regional players, navigating Fujii's demanding blend of composition, conduction, improvisation, and ensemble interaction.

"Luise Volkmann is a young saxophonist and composer based in Cologne, Germany. She studied Jazz Saxophone in Leipzig (HMT) and Paris (CNSMdP) and Composition in Cologne (HfMT). She has lived and worked in Germany, France, Danemark and Brazil, and is constantly involved not only in music, but also in social and cultural organization.

As a musician she is working with contemporary composed and improvised music. Among others she has played concerts with Eve Risser, Sylvain Kassap, Satoko Fujii, Natsuki Tamura, Steve Beresford, Mia Zabelka, Jan Klare, Robert Landfermann, Lisa Mezzacappa, Eivind Lønning und Sylvaine Hélary.

In 2016 she has been invited beeing resident at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. 2017 she released her first debout album with the large ensemble Été Large. The CD was chosen by the german magazine "Die Zeit" as one of the best CDs in 2017. The radio station "BR Klassik" named her mixing of classical music and jazz "Kammer-Jazz".

In her three years living in Paris she cooperated with the most interesting musicians collectives such as Umlaut, COAX, Tricolectif and Collectif LOO. 2018 she realized several sound performances with the Goethe Institut Paris.

Her compositional works were first published at Editions Leduc in 2017. In 2019 she realized a work for the Bauhaus jubilee."

Alto saxophonist Paul Jumaa-Dohna is associated with the Bielefeld scene and appears in Satoko Fujii's Bunker Ulmenwall Orchestra, sharing the alto saxophone section with Luise Volkmann. His work in the ensemble contributes to the orchestra's broad reed palette, helping shape the shifting textures, written passages, and collective improvisational episodes central to Fujii's large-ensemble music.

German saxophonist and educator Volker Winck is a professor of saxophone and music didactics at the Hochschule Osnabrück, where he previously helped develop and direct the jazz studies program. A widely recorded studio and ensemble musician, he has appeared on more than 250 productions for radio, television, and recording projects, bringing extensive experience to his role on tenor and soprano saxophones in Satoko Fujii's Bunker Ulmenwall Orchestra.

Cologne saxophonist Sebastian Büscher is active in jazz and improvised music, with a practice shaped by a wide range of musical forms and by studies with saxophonist Claudius Valk. In Satoko Fujii's Bunker Ulmenwall Orchestra, his tenor saxophone work adds a forceful and flexible voice to the reed section, moving between composed ensemble writing and the improvisational intensity of Fujii's large-scale structures.

German bass saxophonist, composer, and educator Andreas Kaling began playing saxophone in the 1970s and has long worked across free improvisation, jazz, rock-inflected projects, and experimental ensemble music. A founder of the all-bass-saxophone quartet Deep Schrott and a solo bass saxophone recording artist, he brings a deep, gritty, and highly individual low-register voice to Satoko Fujii's Bunker Ulmenwall Orchestra.

"Matthias Muche (D) trombone, born in 1972 lives in Cologne and works as musician and media artist. He studied trombone at the Amsterdam School of the Arts, in Rotterdam and at the "Hochschule für Musik" in Cologne with Bart van Lier, Henning Berg and Paulo Alvares and also audiovisual media with Anthony Moore at the academy of media arts cologne. Muche works in several formations, e.g. with the James Choice Orchestra, Das Mollsche Gesetz, Nils Klein Tentett, Schäl Sick Brass Band and with Mischa Mengelberg, Larry Ochs and Robyn Schulkowsky, having concert tours through Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

As media artist, Muche combines contemporary music with new media in his audiovisual works. his latest works were presented in bern, paris and during the Art Cologne. Together with Sven Hahne he has been Artistic Director of the FRISCHZELLE festival for Intermedial Performance since 2004. Furthermore he is founder member of ZEITKUNST, which is an association for the advancement and conveyance of audiovisual art."

Guitarist Lucy Liebe is associated with the Bielefeld and German creative music scenes, working across guitar, bass, and electric textures. In Satoko Fujii's Bunker Ulmenwall Orchestra, her electric guitar adds a sharply contrasting timbral element to the large ensemble, moving between atmospheric color, rock-inflected force, and improvisational response within Fujii's expansive orchestral language.

German cellist, composer, and performance artist Willem Schulz has worked for decades at the intersection of contemporary music, improvisation, performance, and interdisciplinary art. Rooted in classical cello but influenced by Fluxus, New Music, and experimental performance practices, he brings a distinctive physical and sonic approach to the cello within Satoko Fujii's Bunker Ulmenwall Orchestra.

Pianist Matthias Klause is associated with the Bielefeld jazz and creative music scene, appearing as the pianist in Satoko Fujii's Bunker Ulmenwall Orchestra. Within the ensemble, his role is both harmonic and textural, contributing to the music's written structures, improvisational episodes, and the shifting balance between orchestral density, rhythmic drive, and moments of more open lyricism.

Born in Bielefeld in 1993, bassist and composer Kevin Hemkemeier works on double bass and electric bass across jazz, pop, classical, and contemporary ensemble settings. Originally a cellist before turning to bass, he studied classical double bass at the Detmold conservatory and has performed internationally in a variety of ensembles, bringing a broad rhythmic and stylistic foundation to Satoko Fujii's Bunker Ulmenwall Orchestra.

Joel Köhn is associated with the Bielefeld creative music scene and appears in Satoko Fujii's Bunker Ulmenwall Orchestra on sampling and electronics. His role expands the ensemble's acoustic palette with live electronic sound, adding texture, disruption, and spatial color to Fujii's already wide-ranging orchestral language.

Drummer Juri Beier is associated with the Bielefeld and Detmold music scenes and appears as one of the two drummers in Satoko Fujii's Bunker Ulmenwall Orchestra. Working alongside Karl Godejohann, he contributes to the ensemble's rhythmic propulsion, collective momentum, and explosive large-group energy.

German drummer, composer, producer, and recording engineer Karl Godejohann has worked as a freelance musician since 1980, developing a practice that joins jazz drumming, electronics, samples, recording technology, and experimental ensemble work. A member of groups including Alte Leidenschaften, Die Konferenz, and Kordes Tetzlaff Godejohann, he brings both rhythmic command and technical expertise to Satoko Fujii's Bunker Ulmenwall Orchestra.