to our
2025 JEN Scholarship
Recipients!
Takumi Kakimoto is an award-winning composer and pianist originally from Himeji, Japan, and currently based in Los Angeles. He received a full-tuition scholarship to Berklee College of Music, where he earned a Bachelor of Music in Performance and Jazz Composition. His work as both a performer and composer has earned numerous accolades, including the BMI Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize, ASCAP Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award, DownBeat Student Music Awards, and the Yamaha Music Foundation Grant. In addition to his work in jazz and contemporary music, Takumi has served as a ballet pianist for esteemed institutions such as Boston Ballet, Harvard Dance Center, and American Contemporary Ballet. He is currently pursuing a Master of Music in Jazz Composition at the University of Southern California, studying under the mentorship of Vince Mendoza.
Saoirse Sipes, 17, is a junior at Thousand Oaks High School. He has been playing the drums for four years and studies privately with Charles Ruggiero and Roy McCurdy. Saoirse studies jazz performance, theory, and composition in the Colburn School’s Downbeat award-winning Big Band and Thursday Night Combo, both directed by Lee Secard. Some of his biggest influences on the drums are Philly Joe Jones, Tony Williams, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Brian Blade, Gregory Hutchinson, and Obed Calvaire. Awards & Honors include: Downbeat Magazine – Winner, Honors High School Composition (2025); Music Center’s Spotlight Competition – Grand Prize Finalist, Jazz Instrumental (2025); National YoungArts Foundation – Winner, Jazz Drums (2024 & 2025); CASMEC – California All-State HS Jazz Band (2024).
Shiyu Fang is a Chinese pianist and composer whose work blends traditional jazz elements with
innovative contemporary jazz compositional approaches. Currently pursuing her Master’s degree in Jazz Composition at Manhattan School of Music under the guidance of composer Darcy James Argue, Shiyu brings a distinct voice to contemporary jazz.
Her compositions explore new sonic possibilities while honoring big band traditions. During her first year at Manhattan School of Music, her original big band composition was performed by the MSM Jazz Orchestra with vibraphonist Joe Locke. She also presented her arrangement of a Ron Miles piece at Dizzy’s Club at Jazz at Lincoln Center in April 2025.
Prior to graduate school, Shiyu received the Berklee Toshiko Akiyoshi Award for jazz composition. Her studies have been supported by the Herb Pomeroy Scholarship and the Berklee World Tour Scholarship, providing her with educational opportunities and industry connections.
As a member of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, Shiyu’s artistic development connects with her commitment to fostering inclusivity in jazz. She has studied with mentors including Kris Davis, Kevin Harris, Kenny Werner, Ayn Inserto, Billy Childs, Miguel Zenón, and Luis Perdomo—relationships that have informed her understanding of musical expression and composition.
Shiyu has performed alongside jazz artists including Miguel Zenón, Jim McNeely, and Bijon Watson. Her arranging skills were recognized when the US Army Field Big Band selected her work for professional recording.
In April 2023, Shiyu performed at The Vermont Solo Piano Jazz Festival as an Emerging Artist, sharing the program with pianists Dan Tepfer, Orrin Evans, Myra Melford, and Michael Weiss.
Shiyu’s artistic practice extends to cross-disciplinary projects, including a collaboration with artist Rashid Johnson on “Antoine’s Organ” and a solo piano residency at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum—experiences that have expanded her creative range and artistic connections.
The path in jazz continues to unfold for Shiyu, driven by her interest in innovation, collaboration, and community. She hopes to contribute positively to the jazz world by supporting diversity and creativity, working toward a more inclusive environment where different perspectives are valued.
Santiago Gabriel Jimenez from William Howard Taft High School in San ANtonio Texas is currently ranked number 1 jazz trumpeter in Texas through TMEA. Named as a two time All-State Jazz trumpeter he has been lead for both Jazz Ensemble 2 and Jazz Ensemble 1. He has performed under nationally recognized directors and jazz musicians such as Wayne Bergeron, Terell Stafford and Scotty Barnhart. He has collaborated with elite young musicians across the state of Texas. Diagnosed with ADHD, Santiago credits jazz with teaching him focus, time management, and the power of turning obstacles into artistic opportunities.
Outside of competitions, Santiago is dedicated to jazz education, transcribing classic solos and mentoring young players. He plans to pursue a degree in jazz performance, with a focus on preserving the genre’s legacy while pushing its boundaries. To Santiago, jazz is more than music: it’s a mindset of resilience, adaptability, and relentless curiosity.
Aiden Williams is a double bass player from Richmond, Virginia. He is a member of the Specialty Center for the Arts at Thomas Dale High School, for Jazz and Classical Double Bass performance.
Over his tenure he has been a part of numerous groups including: a core bassist for Greater Richmond Youth Jazz Band, Principal Bassist of the Richmond Symphony Youth Orchestra, and a participating member of the Governor’s School for the Performing Arts.
Aiden has always been inspired by jazz, specifically free jazz. He has modeled his play style after musicians such as Cecil McBee, Sun Ra, and Pharaoh Sanders. He believes that Richmond is a place with strong musical diversity and that’s why starting in the fall of 2025, he will be attending Virginia Commonwealth University for Jazz Studies, under the tutelage of Andrew Randazzo. He hopes to one day be a contributing factor to the modern day membrane of jazz and inspire like-minded thinkers.
Allison Young is a saxophonist and woodwind doubler currently based in Rochester, NY, where she’s pursuing a Masters degree at the esteemed Eastman School of Music. Allison has performed as a bandleader and sideperson for groups such as the Colorado Jazz Repertory Orchestra, the Annie Booth Big Band, the Drew Zaremba Jazz Fellowship Orchestra, No Hands Brass Band, and the Allison Young Quartet while working in the vibrant Denver music scene. She has toured internationally with the Glenn Miller Orchestra and has performed alongside musicians such as Dick Oatts, Jeff Hamilton, Wayne Bergeron, Randy Brecker, Tia Fuller, Father John Misty, KNOWER, and Ms. Lauryn Hill & the Fugees. During the summer of 2024, she was selected for the prestigious Jazz Aspen Snowmass Big Band Academy led by Artistic Director Christian McBride. Allison earned her Bachelors of Music degree in Music Business from the University of Northern Colorado in 2022.
Anya Marie Menk is a musician, educator, composer and lyricist from Le
Center, Minnesota. Menk’s diverse skill set is displayed through classical
and jazz voice, piano and flute. Her smooth and agile voice can be heard
singing a heartfelt ballad or an original jazz vocalese. She possesses the
unique ability to self-accompany, walking a bass line and comping as she
improvises with her voice. She has performed with notable jazz artists such
as saxophonist Joe Lovano, drummer JT Bates and Peter Eldridge of New York
Voices.
Menk enjoys writing music about social justice, such as her tribute to
victims of gun violence, “How Many More,” or her original vocalese over
“Joy Spring,” to raise awareness for the impacts of climate change.
Inspired by many thoughtful and devoted educators throughout her life, she
has been teaching privately for a decade. Menk is currently working toward
a Master’s degree at Berklee’s Global Jazz Institute in Boston,
Massachusetts under the direction of GRAMMY-winning artist, Danilo Pérez.
With social activism at the front of her mind, she plans to continue to
perform and teach long into the future.
Jiayi Guo is a 20 year old uprising Hong Kong-born pianist, composer and bandleader currently finishing her studies of jazz piano performance and composition at the Berklee College of Music and the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice. Guo began as a classically trained pianist, studying with Dr. Yan Yun from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. She went on in her childhood to win consecutive awards in the 2010 Hong Kong International 200th Anniversary of Chopin Youth Piano Competition. After moving to the US, in 2016 she performed solo piano at the prestigious Carnegie Hall as a winner of the 13th Annual American Arts Festival competition. Guo then discovered her passion and future in jazz, improvisation, and composition in high school. She considers herself a pianist foremost, with personal influences from Geri Allen, Thelonious Monk and Charles Lloyd. Guo’s performance studies remain in the tradition of jazz, however she is also an unyielding student of the free and the avant garde. At Berklee, she has studied and continues mentorship under distinguished artists such as Kris Davis, Fransisco Mela, Yoko Miwa, and Utar Artun. Guo has performed with George Garzone in the Berklee Performance Center Signature Series, as well played with David Fiuczynski at the annual concert of the American Academy of World Music. As a bandleader Guo has brought her musical groups to perform all over the Boston area playing original music, including the International Boston Asian Music Festivals of the years ‘21- ‘24, Harvard CamLab, the Mad Monkfish, the PostUnderground, and Coolidge Corner Theatre.
Raised in a family of traditional Chinese folk musicians, Guo’s artistry is rooted with a global influence, as she seeks to intertwine the sounds of contemporary and traditional jazz, the avant garde, and traditional Chinese music. As a composer and arranger, Guo is multifaceted writing for her smaller jazz combo groups as well as large orchestral commissions. In 2023, she arranged for the Orquestra Chinesa de Macau, configuring popular jazz music to be played in a traditional chinese instrument orchestra. Guo’s arrangement works also include Suona and Trumpet with Orchestra, performed by her father, suona virtuoso Yazhi Guo and trumpeter Dr. Alexander Freund with the International Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in late 2024. She has completed copyist work for the Silk Road Ensemble, a music collective and organization founded by renowned cellist YoYo Ma.
Hannah Marks is a bassist, composer, and educator living in New York City. She has bandled at festivals like the Detroit Jazz Festival, Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival, Hyde Park Jazz Festival, 80-35 Music Festival, Iowa City Jazz Festival and Indy Jazz Festival. Releasing in 2026, Marks’ second album Feed the Fire (produced by Jason Moran) features her fierce, risk-taking acoustic jazz quartet, blending modern, straight-ahead, and avant-garde jazz. Her debut album, Outsider, Outlier, is an explosive rendering of her search for belonging and empowerment. A nod to her love for punk, noise and free improvisation, Outsider, Outlier released on Out Of Your Head Records on October 20, 2023. Citizen Jazz called Outsider, Outlier “…a very mature record from a young artist with very strong ideas who does not hold back anything.”
As a side-woman, Marks has been described as having “a fresh, modern, and original approach to playing the bass” by Marcus Printup. Marks is a member of NEA Jazz Master Dee Dee Bridgewater’s quartet and has performed with Geoffrey Keezer, Nasheet Waits, Terri Lyne Carrington, Anna Webber, Miles Okazaki, Ingrid Jensen, Matt Wilson, Ted Nash, and Marcus Printup. Marks’ discography includes playing on Geoffrey Keezer’s Grammy award winning composition “Refuge”, Amanda Ekery’s Arabé, and Kristen Lee Sergeant’s Falling with saxophonist Ted Nash.
Marks is passionate about jazz education, serving on faculty at Jazz House Kids and the Borough of Manhattan Community College during the academic year, and at Interlochen Arts Camp, Stanford Jazz Workshop, and Jazz Camp West during the summer. She has also presented masterclasses at universities across the country (Brown University, Indiana University, and University of Denver, among others) and adjudicated at the Reno Jazz Festival and Clark College Jazz Festival. She runs her own private lesson studio for bassists and also offers grant-writing coaching sessions for creatives looking to apply for grants and artist residencies.
Several organizations have funded Marks’ creative endeavors, including Chamber Music America, South Arts, Boulder County Arts Alliance, New England Conservatory, and Indiana University. She has been awarded artist residencies at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (2025), Yaddo (2024), and MacDowell (2023). Marks is an alum of the Stanford Jazz Workshop Mentor Fellow program (2022-23), The Jazz Gallery Mentorship program (2022), the Woodshed Network (2021), Betty Carter Jazz Ahead (2019) and the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music (2018).
Marks is currently studying at New England Conservatory, where she takes lessons with Jason Moran, Cecil McBee, Joe Morris, and Dominique Eade. She will graduate from NEC with a Masters in Jazz Performance and a Teaching Artistry certificate in Spring 2026. An alum of Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, Marks studied with Walter Smith III, Kurt Muroki and Jeremy Allen. She hails from Des Moines, IA.
Nick Gomez is a saxophonist, composer, and educator based in Bloomington, Indiana. As a doctoral student and graduate assistant at Indiana University, Nick assists with Jazz Improvisation I and II and directs the All-Campus Jazz Ensemble for non-majors. In Fall 2024, he arranged a program of Duke Pearson’s music to be performed with a sextet of IU students and faculty. His current project is leading a Latin and soul jazz ensemble that will participate in festivals and concert series in Bloomington this summer.
Before moving to Indiana, Nicholas worked as a professional musician in Los Angeles for ten years performing with Poncho Sanchez, Breakestra, Cold Duck, and others. The Nick Gomez Quartet was featured throughout Southern California and released an album of original music titled Patience in 2023. Nicholas’s professional experience complemented his work at UC Riverside and San Bernardino Valley College, where he taught jazz improvisation, jazz history, and applied saxophone.
Nick’s commitment to jazz education is exemplified by his service to his home community in the Inland Empire. From 2017 to 2018, he organized and hosted weekly jam sessions and a monthly concert series at C Street Café in Ontario, CA and from 2022-2023, he established a monthly jazz masterclass series, which brought prominent LA musicians to the Garcia Center for the Arts in San Bernardino, CA. Nick intends to continue his community outreach throughout his career as a jazz educator by collaborating with local organizations to put on concerts and masterclasses and by establishing connections between urban jazz hubs and underserved communities.
Khamari Hall is an African-American aspiring Jazz bassist and educator currently residing in Chicago, IL. Born into a musical and Christian family, Halls musical journey is rooted in his initial exposure to gospel at an early age. He fondly remembers his love for bass blossoming in his local church’s musicians pit, eventually learning to play alongside them whilst developing a broad vocabulary of African-American music styles including hip-hop, soul, funk, and his favorite, Jazz.
Now a graduating senior from Kenwood Academy Highschool, Khamari has had the opportunity to play within his schools accomplished Jazz Orchestra and Combos. The band has been invited to play at the Chicago Jazz festival for 17 consecutive years, received numerous first place awards and honors via Illinois state music associations, and performed at renowned venues such as the Midwest Clinic, Kennedy Center and Chicago Symphony Center. Hall and the ensemble have also participated in masterclasses in collaboration with the Jazz Institute of Chicago, learning from a variety of teaching artists including bassist Katie Ernst, trumpeter Victor Garcia, tenor saxophonist Julius Salter, and alto saxophonist Alexa Tarantino.
Outside of school, Khamari participates in a multitude of Jazz programs which have allowed him to elevate his playing and pedagogy to the next level. He is a former scholar of Ravinia’s Jazz mentor program, studying jazz composition, history and performing in group settings alongside other Chicago Public School students. Some of his former mentors include guitarist Bobby Broom, drummer Ernie Adams, Jazz Historian and Percussionist Dr. Eric Hines, and pianist Richard Johnson. Currently, Hall is a member of the Jazz Institute of Chicago’s “Jazz Links” Student Council, in which he regularly performs with student led ensembles across the City of Chicago. He recently opened for the Chris Green Quartet as apart of the “Jazz City” initiative through the Chicago Park District. Hall also has upcoming performances with two trios as apart of the organizations “NextGenJazz Emerging Artist Project” over the summer in popular locations such as Navy Pier, Jazz Showcase, Millennium Park and more. Additionally, he has meet and worked with Jazz musicians performing in Chicago through Jazz Links, assisting and learning from acclaimed bassist Christian McBride at his most recent performance at Chicago Symphony Center. Individually, Khamari continues to study with professional jazz musicians across the Chicagoland area. He currently studies with bassists Michael Manson and Dennis Carroll, and in the past has studied with Marlene Rosenberg, Bethany Pickens, Joan Collaso and Lawrence Hanks.
When not actively performing, Hall dedicates much of his time towards doing what he feels is most important: serving his community. He provides free afterschool music theory and bass lessons to those interested at Kenwood Academy. He does so in conjunction with teaching aspects of Jazz history, particularly focusing on aspects of the African diaspora. Hall passionately believes honoring and keeping alive the traditions of Black performance through his playing.
Khamari plans to pursue a Bachelors of Music with a minor in Jazz Studies at DePauw University beginning in the Fall of 2024. He plans to later attain teaching certifications to pursue a career music education.
Josh Kolesar is an emerging jazz trumpet player from Brandon, Manitoba. Known for his versatility, Josh plays a variety of genres, including jazz, classical, rock, pop, and beyond. His musical journey began in grade 9 when he transitioned from alto saxophone to trumpet and quickly discovered a deep connection with the instrument. By grade 10, he was the lead trumpet player in his high school’s auditioned senior jazz band, showcasing his rapid growth and commitment to his craft.
Over the years, Josh has had multiple performance opportunities across Canada, including works with the Conn-Selmer Centerstage Jazz Band in Toronto, the JazzWorks Canada High School Band in Ottawa, the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra Senior Honour Jazz Band, the Desautels Faculty of Music Invitational Band, the International Music Camp Brekke Big Band, and multiple other opportunities as a freelance musician.
Josh has had the privilege of performing at a variety of venues, including the Western Manitoba Centennial Auditorium, West End Cultural Center, York University, Princess Park, Desautel Faculty of Music Concert Hall, and the Centennial Concert Hall, as well as busking on street corners across the prairies. Along the way, he’s been influenced and mentored by a diverse group of musicians, including Jonathan Challoner, Christine Jensen, Rachel Therrian, Kevin Turcotte, Jim Lewis, Brownman Ali, Devon Gillingham, Sean Irvine, and Meaghan Graham.
Currently, Josh is focused on preparing for his university journey and upcoming performances in Toronto, Ottawa, and Winnipeg, all while continuing to explore new musical possibilities and opportunities.