Yumi Kurosawa, born into a family of koto players in Japan, started her koto studies at the age of three with her parents, Kazuo and Chikako Kurosawa. At the age of 15, she commenced studying the 20-string koto under Nanae Yoshimura.
She was the recipient of the first prize at the National Japanese Koto Competition in 1989 and 1992, and in 1998 Yumi was awarded a scholarship from The Agency for Cultural Affairs of Japan. She toured Canada, Malaysia, Russia, and the U.S., in addition to performing in Japan at prominent venues such as Suntory Hall in Tokyo and on NHK Broadcast TV programs while still a teenager.
Yumi has been based in New York since 2002 and has always been focused on combining her unique compositional style with various cultures and traditions to create innovative and borderless music. Despite the koto being a traditional Japanese musical instrument with an extensive history in Japan, Yumi diverges from the conventional canon by utilizing her compositions to unify diverse cultures and work alongside talented musicians to reimagine koto music’s possibilities.
She made her debut at Carnegie Hall in 2006, and in 2011, she was the principal soloist in the premiere of Daron Hagen’s Koto concerto Genji with Orchestra of the Swan in Stratford-upon-Avon, UK.
In 2015, she premiered the Ballet Tsuru, commissioned by Houston Ballet and Asia Society Texas, as both a soloist and composer. That same year, she collaborated with Beyoncé’s dancers, Les Twins, for a performance at Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto’s world heritage site. She also performed at the World Economic Forum in Dalian, China, and was a soloist for the Koto & Shakuhachi concerto Fugaku by Takashi Yoshimatsu, conducted by Sachio Fujioka and the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, at Suntory Hall’s opening gala. In 2017, she was a guest artist at the reopening of the Terrace Theatre at the Kennedy Center, which was a gift from Japan.
Yumi continues to perform in New York City at the most prestigious venues, including Symphony Space, Joe’s Pub, the Highline Ballroom, the Blue Note, Apollo Theater, Japan Society, Asia Society, and Carnegie Hall. She was granted a music residency at Pioneer Works and has also performed at the National Gallery of Art, the Freer Sackler Gallery at the Smithsonian Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum. In 2019, she was invited to perform at the 120th anniversary celebration for Japanese immigrants in Peru, presented by the Japan Embassy and Japan Foundation. In 2020, she was the first Japanese traditional instrument player to perform at the 30th anniversary of the Australian Chamber Music Festival and continues to create music for her original projects with tabla, violin, dance, and more.
Yumi Kurosawa established her trio in 2020, with the intention of broadening her musical compositions for ensembles. To infuse color into her music, Yumi opted for the violin and percussion. As Koto is a plucked and percussive instrument, Yumi is already comfortable playing alongside various percussive instruments. However, to add an element of lyricism, Yumi chose the violin to create a sustained sound.
This trio expands her range of timbres to achieve equilibrium for her creative vision. On her album Metamorphosis, Yumi Kurosawa takes the Japanese koto with her trio in bold new directions (Zoho Music, 2023). Yumi revives a musical tradition that dates back 1300 years, intertwining traditional Japanese forms with Afro-Latin, Jazz, Middle Eastern, and Western neoclassical forms to produce something innovative.
Production by the Latin Grammy winners Arturo O’Farrill and Kabir Sehgal enabled Yumi to achieve a long-held goal that brought her to New York from Morioka-city, Japan in 2002. “I wanted to blend my music with other cultures,” she explains. “Over the past three to four years, I knew I was almost there. I don’t mean to say that I’m completely satisfied—we keep on growing forever until we leave this world—but during this recording, I felt that I might have reached what I had wanted twenty years ago.”
Yumi Kurosawa’s trio includes Naho Parrini on violin and Eric Phinney on percussion and tabla, accompanied by guest artists Carlos Maldonado on Latin percussion and Zac Zinger on alto saxophone and shakuhachi. Metamorphosis was recorded in October 2022 at Power Station at Berklee NYC, and is an auditory journey, unfolding through a series of landscapes, from the percussive energy and bustling streets of Yumi’s adopted home in “Oneday Monday,” to a collection of South American snapshots sewn together on Yumi’s koto (“Journey”), to the Japanese mountains and cherry blossom petals that inspired “Dawn.”
Yumi’s work often responds to other media, as evidenced by “Restless Daydream,” commissioned by Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art for their 2019 exhibition of Japanese painter and calligrapher Tomioka Tessai, and other esteemed cultural institutions such as the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and the Apollo Theater. In “New Land Found,” tension between searching rubato and a locked-in groove mirrors the meandering path to discovery, while “Zealla” uses Middle Eastern scales, minor thirds, and angular lines to tell a story of passion. “Mandala,” another commission from the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery, evokes the sacred space created by this Buddhist visual tradition. “Inner Space,” Yumi’s very first composition, has been re-arranged to showcase the evolution and the complete range of her compositional career. “Departure,” inspired by the autumn Obon festival in Morioka, a holiday commemorating ancestors, concludes the album.
Yumi holds a Bachelor Degree in International Relations from Keio University, Tokyo, Japan, and is a Certified Master from the SEIHA school. Currently, Yumi is a music instructor at Columbia University’s Music Performing Program.
(headline image: Yumi Kurosawa – Photo by Gail Hadani)
Discography:
Beginning of a Journey (2009)
Looking Up At The Sky (2015)
Four Seasons (2017)
Metamorphosis (Zoho Music, 2023)
Author: Angel Romero
Angel Romero y Ruiz has dedicated his life to musical exploration. His efforts included the creation of two online portals, worldmusiccentral.org and musicasdelmundo.com. In addition, Angel is the co-founder of the Transglobal World Music Chart, a panel of world music DJs and writers that celebrates global sounds. Furthermore, he delved into the record business, producing world music studio albums and compilations. His works have appeared on Alula Records, Ellipsis Arts, Indígena Records and Music of the World.