Ayumi Okada

Biography

A native of Kyoto, Japan, Ayumi is a musical theatre/concert music composer based in NYC and a 2019 recipient of the BMI Jerry Harrington Awards For Outstanding Creative Achievement in Musical Theatre. For her work on a new musical, The Uncivil Ones, she and her collaborator were honored with a Special Mention at the 2019 Women in the Arts & Media Coalition Collaboration Awards. Ayumi is a Mannes Buhuslav Martinů Composition Award winner and a Goberman Prize recipient.

A number of her concert music works have been performed by prestigious ensembles including American Wild Ensemble, Juventas New Music Ensemble, Listen Closely, A.W. Duo, and Alaria Chamber Ensemble. Her musical theatre songs have been performed at The Duplex, Signature Theatre, and Feinstein’s/54 Below, among other venues. She has also worked for Takarazuka Revue Company in Japan as a co-orchestrator for several shows including 1789: Les Amants de la Bastille and Rurouni Kenshin: Meiji Swordsman Romantic Story. On the Zattere, a new musical dramatic reading that she co-wrote music and lyrics, which premiered in Tokyo in 2022, will be produced again in Hyogo in October 2023. Ayumi's debut EP, "Here, Where The Land Ends And The Sea Begins,” along with several other chamber pieces are published and available through Abundant Silence.

As an educator, Ayumi has given lectures through various organizations including Maestra Music, Musical Theatre Writers Japan, Festival for Creative Pianists, and Jensen Piano & Music Composition Studio.

She holds an MM in Music Composition from Mannes College of Music and an MA in Music Education from Kyoto University of Education (Japan.) She is a member of the American Federation of Musicians Local 802, the Dramatists Guild of America, Maestra, the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Advanced Workshop, Landscape Music, and is a board member of Musical Theatre Writers Japan and Festival for Creative Pianists.