Striking the Right Note
What does it take to forge a career in music? One trumpet-playing Member explains.
The sounds of Bart Howard’s “Fly Me to the Moon” soaring through the Winter Garden last December signaled more than just another edition of the regular Winter Garden Melodies events.
The 1954 jazz classic was also a hello of sorts from Member Nao Morii, a musician and recording artist who joined the Club last August with her husband.
As the couple toured the Club as part of their orientation, Morii, 37, was impressed with the grandeur of the Winter Garden. The trumpeter and singer let event organizers know that she would be interested in performing there. On December 9, together with her pianist and arrangement partner Yumi Torii, she did just that.
The acoustic spaces of the Club were the biggest draw for Morii when deciding to join. The two soundproofed music rooms on the second floor, in particular, are a valuable resource in the middle of Tokyo.
“I used to practice at home, but some neighbors complained,” she says of trying to hone her craft in her Nishi Azabu apartment.
Morii’s path to musical success in a country obsessed with strings started at age 8, when her mother’s job as a music teacher directing a junior high school brass brand inspired her to pick up the French horn. But when that proved costly, she opted for the trumpet.
After graduating from Osaka University of Arts in 2009, Morii qualified as a trumpet, vocal and gospel instructor. She still teaches occasionally when she’s not working as an event emcee or performing.
“When I play in a concert hall, I can see people’s minds changing with [the trumpet’s] vibration and power,” Morii says. “I feel like I own the world when I play the trumpet.”
She cites the late French classical trumpeter Maurice André as a particular inspiration.
“I’m always spellbound by his sound, skill and the heart he put into music,” she says.
Morii also composes her own pieces and, in 2016, released her first major single, “A Clown in New York,” on the 92-year-old King Records, one of the biggest labels in Japan.
A year later, she launched her own YouTube channel to share her music and performances. After she formed a trumpet trio in 2021, this expanded to three channels, which boast 28,000 subscribers and have racked up more than 5.4 million views.
Morii and her husband, Michael Staley, who met through her music, will welcome their first child in May. While Morii says she would be happy to see her child take up an instrument, she knows that turning a hobby into a profession isn’t so simple.
“I was really lucky,” she says. “I know so many talented musicians from my university, but almost everyone has quit music. It’s really hard.”
For Morii, the vibration and power continue.
Words: C Bryan Jones
Top Image of Nao Morii: Kayo Yamawaki
