Crossroads of Japanese Music: Yumi Kurosawa and Friends

Japanese musician and composer Yumi Kurosawa performs on a modern twenty-string koto and is joined by violinist Emil Israel Chudnovsky and Chinese flute (dizi) virtuoso Yimin Miao. Their program features classical music from Japan and China as well as new music composed by Kurosawa for this event inspired by the Freer Gallery of Art exhibition Mind Over Matter: Zen in Medieval Japan.
Since winning the National Japanese Koto Competition and moving to the United States, Kurosawa has performed at the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, the Apollo Theater, Blue Note (New York), Suntory Hall (Tokyo), and venues across Europe. She has appeared with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Hawai’i Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Swan in the United Kingdom (where she premiered Daron Hagen’s koto concerto Genji), and the Houston Grand Opera.
The New York Times called Kurosawa “an inventive, seemingly cosmopolitan composer . . . [who] presents her themes gracefully and then undertakes intricate, sometimes adventurous variations, drawing on a timbral palette that ranged from warm and rounded to bright and metallic.” All About Jazz noted that, when she plays, “the koto’s notes flow like the water of a stream in a Zen garden, building melodic paths in a logic that resembles European medieval and Renaissance music.”
Violinist Emil Israel Chudnovsky recently made his debut at the Seoul Arts Center with the KammerSymphonie Berlin and made his inaugural recording with the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra. He has also performed as soloist with the Orquesta Filarmónica de Jalisco in Mexico and the Orquesta de la Ciudad de los Reyes in Lima, Peru. He has appeared in chamber music ensembles at the Newport Music Festival and Germany’s Henselt Festival and in concert at New York’s Merkin Hall and London’s Wigmore Hall.
Mind Over Matter: Zen in Medieval Japan
asia.si.edu/exhibition/mind-o...

[@raymondowens5852]

😍

[@intuitivetransformation2631]

Yumi Kurosawa is an instrument herself. What she eats, smells, travels to, loves, spends time converts to sound. Although she's a Political Science major, she won't perform for political reasons. Her music is not for any ears. It takes some okuyuki to understand her brilliance. She's second generation world class koto player and her parents traveled globally. Yumi tried to get away from Koto because it's so much practice but her koto called her back. Playing a 20 string koto is physically difficult. Her fingers have suffered exhaustion but she manages by allowing her fingers to support the weakened ones. Yumi has declined hundreds of fusion music recodings that carve off her Koto identity. So, she doesn't go after pop, house, trance, rap, rock, reggae, etc that might have been an easy road to popularity. She has earned a degree in electric music composing. So she can orchestrate an entire orchestra. Technically, she's top of the line. Breaking away from Kyoto and tradition is extremely difficult but I believe she will cut off and free as Anoushka Shankar did. I have composed 7 songs with 7 poems that are under one theme with a kora harp, koto, sitar, tsutsumi, biwa, darbukka, Japanese big drum, and full orchestra. The last piece has a vocalist who will sing along recordings of a humpback whale. I haven't decided who to cast but I will record this perhaps in a major city but create a video clip on a glacier if i can find one. Buy every CD she releases. You and your children will treasure them for life. If you have never been to Kyoto nor a traditional koto live concert, please do. Your heart will sing. It's good to see Yumi doing well. As a second generation composer myself, I'm delighted to see Yumi continue to challenge herself. She's a category on her own.

[@kieranmallamo2424]

Nice