Karin's CDs:

Upcoming Performances | Jazz Quintet | Piano Instruction | Contact Karin

Karin is an accomplished jazz and classical pianist and studied the piano formally for sixteen years. Her teachers through high school included Corrine Berg, Willard Schultz and Professor Neal O'Doan of the University of Washington. Karin continued her studies with Professor O'Doan at the UW and earned degrees in music and piano performance. She returned to earn her music education certificate.

Karin was awarded two Milnor Roberts scholarships and two Bainbridge Music and Art Foundation scholarships. She is the recipient of a 2006 Artist Spport Grant from Jack Straw Productions. Karin is the leader of the Karin Kajita Jazz Quintet and performs at local festivals including Bumbershoot and the Evergreen State Fair. She used the grant to produce her quintet's third CD, "Letting Go" which is now available for sale.

Karin maintains a busy schedule performing and teaching in both idioms. She has played professionally in Seattle, New York, Denver, Wichita, Canada and Salt Lake City. She has done five tours of Japan, playing and singing in hotel lounges. She has performed for Crystal and Norwegian Cruise Lines in northern Europe and Alaska.

Karin has performed weeklong engagements on the Queen of the West, a paddlewheel boat on the Columbia and Snake Rivers. She has had extended solo engagements at the West Coast Bellevue Hotel, the Woodmark Hotel at Carillon Point, Seattle Hilton, Seattle Westin, Seattle Sheraton and the Alexis Hotel.

Karin plays at Martins Off Madison, a piano bar on Capitol Hill, on Tuesday and Thursday nights. She plays at the Washington Mutual Building Atrium on Tuesdays and Thursdays at noon, and at the Fourth and Madison Building on Wednesdays at 11:30 AM. Karin frequently accompanies vocalists Kay Bailey and Karen Shivers, among others.