Brenda Wong Aoki / Mark Izu

Available for Commission

Contact: aokizu@firstvoice.org

photo by Bob Hsiang

Mark Izu received a Northern California Regional EMMY® Award for outstanding Musical Composition/Arrangement for his score for Bolinao 52, a film about the Vietnamese Boat People which also received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary.

Mark Izu is a seminal leader in the Asian American Jazz movement. His compositions include symphony, film, theater, dance and jazz. The principal curator of the original Asian American Jazz Festival held at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park for nearly two decades, he helped establish the genre. Playing the acoustic bass, as well as several traditional Asian instruments, Izu has gained national and international attention as a musician and composer.

Watch a trailer of Mark’s original score featured in “Bolinao 52,” for which Izu won an Emmy for Outstanding Musical Composition!

Emmy-award winning Bolinao 52 music recording

Film Scores

Mark Izu’s original film scores include:

• Mrs. Judo: Be Gentle, Be Strong (2012)
• Bolinao 82 (2007), received Emmy award.
• Dragon Painter (2005), a 1919 silent film, re-scored by Izu, available through Milestone Films.
• Days of Waiting (1991) by Steven Okazaki, won Academy Award

“Izu, a gifted, obviously innovative composer/musician. – Cheryl North, The Oakland Tribune

Dance/Theatre

Izu has vast experience composing music for theatre and dance. He has created musical accompaniment to several theatrical pieces, written and performed by his artistic collaborator, Brenda Wong Aoki.

“Mark Izu . . . leans to dark reverberant sonorities and stark phrases that seem to be chiseled in some magically resilient stone”.
-San Francisco Chronicle

Symphonic Work

Mark Izu worked with conductor Kent Nagano to compose a symphonic work, “Mermaid,” performed by the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra in 1997.

Live Jazz

Mark Izu composes jazz songs for ensemble performance. He incorporates taiko drums, Gagaku (traditional Japanese court music), sho, bass, saxaphone, koto (Japanese stringed instrument), vocal performance, and percussion into his pieces.