Detroit-based pianist and improviser Aya Sekine makes her long-awaited return to her old home, New York City, to premiere her solo project Annoyed Yet Authentic (AYA) — her first-ever improvised solo set in the city. Her performance explores a colorful world of shifting shapes, junk sounds, and complex tonality and rhythm — unpredictable, textured, and soul-stirring. Opening the evening is longtime friend Akiko Pavolka, performing original songs that fuse jazz, pop, and poetic storytelling. A rare gathering and reunion — for artists, friends, and a celebration of making it through a difficult decade.
AKIKO PAVOLKA BIOGRAPHY
Akiko Pavolka is a New York-based musician, composer and educator who’s strikingly original music blends pop and jazz with the music and sensibilities of her native Japan. Akiko was born in Tokyo and grew up in Yokohama. By her teen years she was performing as a singer, bassist and drummer with rock bands. Her interests turned to jazz and, after several years of moonlighting as a vocalist in Tokyo while working as a banker by day, she decided to move to the United States to further her studies at Boston’s prestigious Berklee College of Music. She graduated in 1994 with a degree in Performance and was also awarded the Cleo Laine Outstanding Vocalist Award. She moved to New York City in 1995 and formed her band House Of Illusion shortly thereafter. She has been performing her original music regularly in New York ever since, and in addition she has toured extensively on the West Coast of the US and in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Argentina, and her native Japan. She has released seven albums of her own music, the most recent being “Into The Light” from the Lisbon-based label Timbuktu. An eighth record is in production.
AYA SEKINE
Jazz Pianist · Improviser · Composer · Visual Artist · Educator
Aya Sekine is a jazz pianist and improviser originally from Osaka, Japan, whose career spans over three decades across Japan, Southeast Asia, and the United States. A Berklee-trained musician who developed her voice in New York’s underground scene, she became a key figure in Southeast Asia’s jazz movement before relocating to Detroit in 2024 as a U.S. EB-1 Artist Green Card recipient.
Her artistry is deeply rooted in Black American music traditions, shaped by her early background as a percussionist. Rhythmic and percussive yet harmonically rich, her playing combines soulful phrasing with deep respect for jazz history and tradition, sophisticated harmony, and a fearless use of space and tone. Her improvisations are original and swinging, marked by bold dissonance and emotional clarity. Blending intensity and restraint, tradition and experiment, Sekine’s voice expands the language of bebop while venturing into freer, more exploratory forms.
Since moving to Detroit, she has become an active and sought-after presence, performing at key venues including Blue LLama, Motor City Wine, Music Hall, Moondog Cafe, Trinosophes, and Parts & Labor. Her festival appearances include Strange Beautiful Music(SBM), Michigan Jazz Festival, Summer Solstice Jazz Festival, and Third Place Music Festival.
She leads Junk Jazz with Djallo Djakate and curates Ayaschool, her long-running project space centered on experimentation and creative process. She is a founder of Brazilian Music Study Club Detroit and teaches at Michigan State University’s Detroit Community Music School.
