Known for playing multiple styles across jazz, traditional, and contemporary music, Karin Nakagawa is a Japanese singer, composer, and player of the koto, a traditional stringed instrument and the national instrument of Japan. Born into a musical family, she began learning the instrument at age 12 and went on to study the traditional 13-string instrument at university, but developed expertise on the rarer 25-string koto. Nakagawa has performed in over a dozen countries across Europe, Africa, and Asia, recorded with the J-pop group Ikimono Gakari for their 2009 release Hajimari no Uta, and appears on the Japanese alt-rock band Porno Graffitti's 2010 DVD Trigger. She collaborated with double bassist Anders Jormin and vocalist/violinist/violist Lena Willemark for the improvisatory, traditional music-based Trees of Light, released by ECM in 2015. ~ Marcy Donelson, Rovi