Hitomi Oba

Saxophonist and composer Hitomi Oba was raised in Berkeley, California. Hailed as “powerfully inventive” by the LA Times, recent performances of her compositions include “Fifteenth,” premiered by soprano Tony Arnold and the Third Angle String Quartet, “September Coming,” by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and the American Composers Orchestra, and “Aina,” commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella series, for which Oba participated as both a performer and composer.

Oba has written and arranged, while also playing, for the Los Angeles Asian American Jazz Festival, Kenny Burrell’s Los Angeles Jazz Orchestra Unlimited, and the Jon Jangtet. Projects include her small jazz ensembles, sixteen‐piece jazz orchestra, Jazz Nexus, electro‐acoustic pop duo, Nova, and jazz opera, “STRANGE FELLOWE.” Her second jazz album, “Negai,” released under Japanese label M&I and distributor Pony Canyon, received a prestigious “Swing Journal 42nd Annual Jazz Disc Award.”

Oba is one of the co-founders of the new music collective, LA Signal Lab, premiering and recording stylistically diverse new music with a focus on integrating improvised and pre-composed music. Oba is currently on faculty at Cal State Los Angeles, Pasadena City College, and the University of California, Los Angeles, directing the Contemporary Jazz Ensemble, and teaching jazz saxophone and a multi-genre music theory course.