Haruka Kikuchi was born in Tokyo, Japan, where she excelled at piano and violin as a child. An old recording of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band gave her her 'aha' moment — she picked up the trombone, mastered it, and in 2014 moved 7,000 miles to New Orleans, where she has been 'making her bones' ever since. She studied musicology at the Tokyo University of Fine Arts under banjoist Ken Aoki.
Kikuchi sounds like she may as well have been born and raised in Treme.
— WWOZ, via Country Roads MagazineShe is now a fixture of the trad-jazz scene, playing with the Shotgun Jazz Band, the Shake 'Em Up Jazz Band, the Preservation Hall All-Stars, and Kermit Ruffins and the Barbecue Swingers. WWOZ calls her 'one of the city's most dynamic horn players,' and she earned a Grammy nod for playing on Cha Wa's SpyBoy. She has toured the world and played the North Sea, Umbria, and Edinburgh jazz festivals.
Kikuchi is also a busy record producer: her Japan: New Orleans Collection series, running since 2016, brings visiting Japanese jazz musicians into New Orleans studios to record alongside local players — Volume 17 arrived in April 2025. She is married to pianist Yoshitaka 'Z2' Tsuji; the two met in the second line of 'Uncle' Lionel Batiste's 2012 jazz funeral.
