Japanese-born New York City-based jazz composer/conductor Asuka Kakitani is fast becoming a notable presence on the modern jazz big band scene. Her awards include the BMI Foundation’s 2006 Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize, the prestigious Manny Albam Commission in 2007, and Composer Assistance Grants from the American Music Center in 2009 and 2010. The Asuka Kakitani Jazz Orchestra will perform Asuka’s compositions that are inspired by art, literature, and nature. These works capture this inspiration in orchestrational color and melodic development via extended through-composed forms. Asuka attempts to balance her composed music with a palette for her incredibly creative soloists to express themselves. AKJO will also perform some of her interpretations of traditional Japanese children’s music, which she “re-composes” by utilizing many of their simple motives for thematic development filtered through the language of her distinct harmonic and melodic concept.