２０１１年ファーストアルバム "Music of the Hours" をリリース。 新聞各社、ラジオ等でとりあげられる。 又アメリカ、ロサンゼルスのジャズライブハウス、“Blue Whale”にてGigを果たす。 同年９月、大阪のいずみホールにてピアニストとしてオーケストラと共にガーシュインの“Rhapsody In Blue”を演奏する。
Yuriko Kodama is a formidable jazz talent and expressive jazz pianist. Featured at major jazz festivals, she performs regularly in jazz clubs in Osaka and Kobe. She has also performed Gershwin’s “Rhapsody In Blue” with full orchestra in Izumi Hall in Osaka.
In December 2011, performing Cole Porter’s “What Is This Thing Called Love,” Ms. Kodama won top honors (Grand Prix) for jazz vocal in the prestigious Asakusa Jazz Contest. Soon after, she won Grand Prix (1st prize) at the 2012 6th Saitama Jazz Vocal Contest, singing and improvising solos on “What Is This Thing Called Love” and Billy Strayhorn's masterpiece "Lush Life." In 2006, Yuriko Kodama won first prize in the Jazz Vocal Competition sponsored by Tokyo jazz club Misty.
Ms. Kodama has studied jazz piano with Hiroyuki Miyashita and Phillip Strange, and voice and jazz interpretation with noted jazz vocalists Cathy Segal-Garcia, Eiko Miyano, Emi Kobayashi, and Shoko Amano. She also has a degree in education (Sonoda University, 1999) and Japanese certification in general education and piano instruction and currently teaches piano at Musica Vita (Osaka, Japan).
Her first CD—Music Of The Hours—features creative interpretations of jazz standards by composers such as Arthur Schartz, Bart Howard, and Jimmy Rowles, as well as original compositions by Phillip Strange.
