Yo Kano
Yo Kano was born in Japan
and started playing piano at the age of five. At nine he began to study the
trumpet. When he was in his early teens his musical interests shifted from
classical to jazz and pop music and he began appearing regularly in concert and
on various television and variety shows in Japan.
At nineteen, Yo Kano became totally blind. He returned to playing piano and
keyboards, continued to work as a composer/arranger and began singing. He
signed a contract with the Japanese recording company Polydor in 1981. He
performed in Australia
and New Zealand
under a government-sponsored scholarship in 1982. That same year he came to the
United States
to study music as a recipient of a scholarship from a Japanese corporation.
Yo Kano arrived in New
York and began studying music at the
Lighthouse
Music School
with the late jazz pianist Lance Heyward. He worked as a piano player/singer at
various clubs in the city. He simultaneously worked for several Japanese
recording companies (Polydor, JVC, King Records) as a composer, arranger and
producer.
He released his own album, Manhattan Island in 1987 under King records produced
by David Matthews. He recorded a CD and the soundtrack to a Japanese movie with
Japanese singer Boro in Hollywood in 1991. That same year he also wrote the
theme song for the World Congress on Technology for the Disabled sponsored by
the United Nations and the United States held in Washington, D.C.
Since 1999 Yo Kano's concerts have taken him to the far reaches of Asia - Thailand,
Mongolia, Indonesia, Singapore and Turkey. He has also released four CDs: Yo!,
Mother, Sukiyaki, and Now is the Time.
He is currently working as a composer/arranger
using computer sequencing technology. In the past fifteen years, his
wide-ranging talents have afforded him many opportunities to produce radio
programs, work as a radio personality, and work as a journalist for various
magazines.
In 1995 Yo Kano established The International Communication Service for the
Blind, Inc. (ICSB), a non-profit organization dedicated to the
dissemination of information about various services and technological advances,
especially in regards to career and employment, to visually-impaired persons.
Yo Kano regularly participates in
and sponsors charity concerts as well as workshops in music technology for the
visually-impaired.
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© 2000 Yo Kano
