Rising Stars: Meet Ryota Sasaki

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryota Sasaki.

Hi Ryota, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Hi, my name is Ryota Sasaki and I’m a saxophonist, composer, and arranger from Yokohama, Japan. I am a Jazz Composition student at Berklee College of Music in Boston. I am currently studying the saxophone and composition with Tiger Okoshi, Ayn Inserto, Edmar Colon, and Godwin Louis. Recently, I’ve been working on writing original music for my big band as well as for large ensembles. Besides making charts, I also do a lot of performing gigs and recitals in both Boston and Japan.

My mother is huge fan of music especially jazz and Latin music. She also teaches classic piano and is involved with some amateur bands in Japan. Since I was really influenced to play music. I started clarinet when I entered to the junior high school and switched to tenor saxophone when I was 15 years old. At the same time, I am so sure about becoming a jazz musician when my mother took me to my local Japanese jazz clubs for live performances at the first time.

In the meantime, I also started listening to a lot of legendary jazz musicians such as John Coltrane, Joe Henderson, Charlie Parker, and more. John Coltrane especially inspired me a lot. It was totally different music than what I had listened to before I was introduced to Jazz. I felt huge flexibility and freedom for music based on the huge number of contributions, and Practices when I listen to these great jazz musicians. I couldn’t catch what is going on specifically because I was young, but this is the biggest reason why I started practicing saxophone as much as possible when I was in junior high school to get closer and being with music.

Now I’m a student at Berklee College of Music, which is a pioneer and one of the best music colleges in the world. Today I am here practicing saxophone, surrounded by great teachers and friends who are also great musicians, composing new tunes, and living with music.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Definitely not. I am struggling with my music a lot today. Music has a lot of elements: rhythm, pitch, dynamics, phrasing, emotion, and the relationship between musicians – all of which will reflect the quality of the music. Though the greatest teachers in Berklee support me, sometimes it takes a while to fix my musical weakness although my musical perspective got much wider since I started studying in Berklee. However, I can say it never ends as long as music has unlimited possibilities. I have even kept discovering the new musical things in every single day. I am so sure that I will keep having fun or struggling, I will never get bored to make the music only I can make in my life.

To me, more likely it was not the smooth to move to the US from Japan by myself when I was 18. I entered to Berklee College of Music in Boston right after I graduated from high school. I still remember there were a lot of problems to move to US such as housing, covid-19, tuition, difficult documents for a high school kid to manage, and I was very stressed when I was in Japan. I had to complete everything. So that was a bit challenging for me. I really need to thank everyone who supports me musically, financially, and mentally in the US and in Japan. I am grateful to still be able to pursue my music career.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m mainly jazz tenor saxophonist, and jazz composer based in Boston and Japan. As a saxophonist, I have played with many great musicians such as Hiromi Uehara, James Francies, and Edmar Castaneda. Leading my 4–5-piece band and do my original music in gigs in both U.S and Japan. I also made some TV-commercial music and movie soundtracks for Japanese companies in the US. As a Jazz Composition major, I work to make my original tunes and arranging for big band, large, and small ensembles. The roots of my composition have been influenced by not only traditional jazz music but also by some Japanese film music, game music, and Japanese traditional music because I was born and raised in a Japanese temple.

So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
Everyone is welcome, especially people who trust the power of music and work hard for. Anytime I do music, there are some landscapes, emotions, or colors in my head. And the reason of keep doing music for me is to express these images from my head to outside using music. So, I would love to work with someone who wants to do music to create these uncertain images with me. Reach me at Instagram DM (ryota_sax) or ryotasasa1220@gmail.com

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/Ryota_sax
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryota_sax/?hl=ja
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100010946538747
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryota_sax
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1yyDLnjTCnGpdL5y65TOkQ