Ryan Tanaka

Hi all, thanks for visiting my page. A little something about myself:

I'm a fourth generation Japanese-American, born and raised in Hawaii where I spent most of my childhood growing up. I briefly lived in Japan, near Yokosuka's U.S. Navy base, where I picked up the language and culture – so I now have fluency in both English and Japanese. I've attended Punahou School for middle and high school (alma mater of our current president), briefly studying engineering before making the switch to studying music. I have a bachelors in music composition from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and a masters in music composition/performance from the California Institute of the Arts. I'm currently earning my Ph.D in historical musicology at University of Southern California, honing my research, scholarship, and writing skills.

Right now my main projects are scholarship and running an improv band called OK Music (okmusic.me). We do something similar to what improv actors and comedians do – we take theme suggestions from audience members, then play them as musical performances. (The format is similar to what you might see in Upright Citizens Brigade or Who's Line Is It Anyway, but for music instrumentals.) We're treating this as an entrepreneurial project in the area of new media practices and have been scouring the startup scene in the Los Angeles area.

Send me an email if you have any questions, feedback, or proposals you might want to make!