Motoshi Kosako & Michael Manring with the Perry Mills Project opening on Feb. 11

Jazz harpist Motoshi Kosako and fretless bass phenom Michael Manring join forces for an evening of extraordinary music.  Opening the show will be fusion guitarist Perry Mills (Objects in the Mirror) with his all-star band.

Motoshi Kosako was born in the sister city of Sacramento, Matsuyama City, Japan. Motoshi began his long pursuit of music at three years of age, with the piano, then continued with the guitar.

In 1997, Mr. Kosako moved to the United States and soon after, he gave up the guitar completely and started playing the harp. He began performing as a soloist and as an accompanist for singers, flutists and violinists. In 2002 and 2003 he recorded his first two solo albums Celestial Harp I and Celestial Harp II. In 2006 Motoshi had the distinguished honor of being named principal harpist of the Stockton Symphony Orchestra, under the very capable baton of Conductor, Mr. Peter Jaffe.

In early spring of 2006, Motoshi began to turn his mind to the possibility of playing jazz on the harp. Which brought him to Salt Lake City International Jazz Harp Competition winning 2nd place with his ground breaking style.

Hailed by many as the world’s leading solo bassist, Michael Manring has been pushing back the boundaries of what’s possible on the bass guitar. While his technical skill and innovations always make an impression, it is his ability to communicate on a profound emotional level that most touches listeners.

Building on the conceptions of his teacher, the late bass legend Jaco Pastorius, Michael has developed an approach to the instrument. He has honed his skills on hundreds of recordings as a session musician and thousands of concerts throughout the world in venues including Carnegie Hall in New York, Yamaha Hall in Tokyo and Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco.

Michael has worked with a diverse collection of musicians from New Age keyboardist Suzanne Ciani to avant-improv guitar innovator Henry Kaiser to celebrated folk troubadour John Gorka to experimental post-metal rockers Tim Alexander (Primus) and Alex Skolnick (Testament) to electro-pop pioneer Thomas Dolby. His long-term collaboration and close friendship with the late acoustic guitar genius Michael Hedges led to a lengthy stint as house bassist for Windham Hill Records.

He has garnered three gold records, Grammy and Bammie nominations, a Berklee School of Music Distinguished Alumni Award, three Just Plain Folks Awards and numerous Bass Player Magazine Readers’ Poll awards including 1994 Bassist of the Year. He was also the subject of a PBS TV documentary, “The Artist’s Profile: Michael Manring” and a Youtube video of him playing his iconic solo piece “Selene” has well over 1.5 million views.

Opening the show will be The Perry Mills Project featuring Perry Mills (Objects in the Mirror) on guitar, Tommy Coster (Dr. Dre, Eminem) on keyboards,  Mark McCartney (Achilles Wheel) on drums and Gerry Pineda (Eddie Harris) on bass.