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Katsuyuki Miyazaki was born 1959 in Mie Prefecture, started playing folk music in junior high school, and then took up bluegrass. "When I got to the University," offers Katz, "I joined the American Folk Music Association and started playing mandolin in 1977." Miyazaki became a full time musician in 1985 after joining a band called Birdland. He got first place at the Takarazuka Bluegrass Festival 1986. In 1988, he spent a year as a professional radio deejay in Kyoto. About that same time, he won Moonshiner magazine's Mandolin Player of the Year Award. He has traveled to Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas in 1992 and 1996, taking third place in the mandolin competition.
The mandolin player has contributed his hot licks on over twenty different recording projects, primarily by various Japanese artists. They are shown at the websitehttp://www.pickoneartists.com/store/cd_katz.html Flying to Nashville, he recorded his initial solo album, "Man-O-Mandolin" (Red Clay Records SRC-114) in the fall of 1996. In 1997, Katz toured Japan with Ronnie McCoury, Rickie Simpkins, Richard Bailey and Gene Libbea to promote the project. He also appeared as a showcase artist at the IBMA Convention that same year. The Japanese mandolinist is proud of the good reviews that the project has received in the U.S. and Japan. It's even received some airplay over in Estonia. In May of 1998, he organized another Japan tour. Two other recent albums, "Battle One" and "Battle Two" (Palm Strings-002 and 006), were released with guitarist Shogo Sakaniwa. Katsu's newest album is "Mandoscape" (Red Clay Records SRC-119), recorded in Nashville and released in September, 2003. Besides producer David Grier on guitar, other veteran sidemen who assisted were Scott Vestal (banjo), Viktor Krauss (bass), and Aubrey Haynie (fiddle). The year 2003 also found Miyazaki playing at the Tower Records showcase in Nashville with Grier, Vestal, Matt Cobs, and Derek Jones.
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