Sakiko Masuda is a composer, arranger, and pianist based in Japan. After graduating from Koyo Conservatory in Kobe, she transferred to Berklee College of Music, where she received the Alex Ulanowski Award from the Harmony Department and graduated top of her class in Jazz Composition.
Her original works have been featured internationally. At the IAJE Conference in New York, she premiered a composition with the Global Jazz Orchestra.
She was selected for the EBU Arrangers Workshop in 2005, studying under Vince Mendoza, where her piece Autumn Winds was performed by the Metropole Orchestra in the Netherlands.
She won first prize and the Audience Award at the Brussels Jazz Orchestra International Composition Contest for her piece Under the Rose, which she later conducted with the orchestra at the Gent Jazz Festival. Her work Again was also selected in the international competition organized by the Sardinian Jazz Orchestra in Italy and performed by the orchestra.
Her major releases include her debut album Sakiko Masuda Jazz Orchestra and her second album Piano Solo.
In recent years, her piano arrangement of Carrying You from Castle in the Sky won first prize in the intermediate category of the Monthly Piano × PTNA Arrangement Competition and was published by Yamaha Music Media. The piece was also selected as a required work in PTNA-affiliated piano competitions.
She arranged the entire Mario de Jazz piano collection, officially supervised by Nintendo and published by Yamaha Music Media. Her big band scores are available from Bell Music Press, and her flexible wind ensemble arrangements are published by Brain Co., Ltd. She also distributes solo and duet piano scores through Piascore under her own label, Masuda Music Office.
In addition to composing and performing, she focuses on creating and publishing jazz arrangements for big band and piano. She serves as a part-time instructor at Kobe Institute of Computing and a guest lecturer at Koyo School of Music & Dance, and regularly judges at events such as the Japan Student Jazz Festival and Stella Jam, supporting the next generation of jazz musicians.